Angels & Devils
by Chant99
Summary: Ambushed by a group of Rogue Vampires, Alice Cullen loses her memory and finds herself in the hands of a old enemy to her kind. A half-vampire who once waged a war of vengeance against full vampires, and who was thought long dead. Chapter 54 up 11-3-10
1. New Forward for March 20th 2010

Forward:

Disclaimer:

I own none of the original Twilight Saga characters… and can only take the blame for my original characters, and the mess I'll probably make of the Twilight world (not on purpose though!)

I'd like to take this chance to thank Stephenie Meyer for allowing her fans to play in her world.

I'll try and not knock all the sand out of the sandbox.

This is not my usual genre for fanfic writing, and its my first venture in the Twilight Saga Realm… so please have some patience with me, as I only had two of the books under my belt so far when I started this story. I have however since then finished the series, and wow, what a ride!

I apologize beforehand if I don't get some of the cannon facts exactly right, and for having to tweak things a bit and make some stuff up to fit the story I have in mind, so I'm pitching that this story happens in a Alternate Twilight Universe that differs slightly from Ms. Meyer's vision.

Any reviews and advice into the TS Universe will be helpful and useful during any future edits to the story… not to mention greatly appreciated.

I seem to have a thing for tiny girls with wild spiky hair, so its not surprising that I find the Alice Cullen character the most interesting in the books… rather than the more main characters of Bella and Edward.

The story I've written, I'll guess would take place somewhere after "New Moon", probably in an alternate universe as I already stated.

I hope to improve my handle on the series as time goes on. I hope you enjoy my attempt.

Thanks all.

**Updates 11/15/09 to 03/20/10:**

I've change a few things in the way I will be posting this story from now on. I will just be giving the post Chapter Numbers for the most part, instead of trying to come with individual titles for each.

Mostly because I have large blocks of this story written out, that are eventually connected together as I go. In some cases 40 or 50 pages of material end up as 14 chapters. (Like today's post will be.)

So starting at Chapter 16, they will all be numbered that way from now on. I am also currently reviewing old chapters and correcting any minor mistakes I find in them as far as spelling and such, and the titles being marked with Chapter numbers. For the most part they will remain generally unchanged unless otherwise noted. Chapters that have been edited to smooth them out, or new lines added to better fit the story line are listed below:

**CHAPTERS THAT HAVE BEEN SLIGHTLY ALTERED/EDITED SINCE ORIGINAL POSTING:**

**Chapter 1 - 03-20-10 (Due to more missed typos), Chapter 2 - 03-03-10, Chapter 3 - 03-03-10, Chapter 4 - 03-03-10, Chapter 5 - 03-03-10. Mass Edit 03-20-10: Chapters 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 18.**

I also still have trouble figuring out how to get the paragraph format to transfer from MS Word over to what the sites uses, and often different scenes run into each other without a space separation because they don't show up in the transfer. So from now on I'll probably be breaking scenes down into their own chapters. In that regards, some chapters will be shorter than others but I hope this will make the story easier to follow.

I hope everyone is enjoying my attempt in a Twilight FanFic (and hope I'm not screw thing up too far outta whack.) There is a whole bunch more coming to this story just yet. I have huge blocks written out, and they morph on me as the story unfolds along. I just got to write up to the parts I have waiting to go and then update those exsiting parts to fit better into the story line. Angel and Kage (AKA Lucifer, which older vampires had dubbed him during his long years at war with the race) are not done with me just yet it seems, as this story has grow larger than I originally intended it to be. (Angel & Kage just keep whispering more of the story in my ear.)

I've also began writing sections for a Part II to this story line – that may or may not continue on to sometime after the first 4 original books leave off… (I wasn't sure in the beginning, but Part 2 of this story line will be taking place sometime after Book 4, "Breaking Dawn" - or some similar version of the events of the last two books, in this alternate universe.)

For those die hard fans that have written with some concerns about poor Alice, please keep in mind, in this story line she's not really left as herself at the moment. She's lost and hurt in more ways than one, and as Angel... she's doing the best she can with what little she knows about herself and her current situation. I just hope I'm getting across that I believe no matter what befalls her, that kindness in her soul will always shine through in some manner… and it's her soul that brings Archer (another of Kage's aliases) back to "life". (Yes, I'm throwing some Evanescence in there!) I warn you now; Alice's recovery from this is not going to be a smooth one and probably won't be fully resolved until Part 2… if it ever really is. (Insert evil laugh here.)

**New 03/20/10:** A 3rd Story is in rough outline stages, and will probably take place after Story 1 & 2 wrap up. One new interesting original character in development. More later.

Of course again, any feedback or helpful advice is always greatly appreciated. At the moment, I'm using the rest of the Cullens sparingly, as I don't want to write anything that's too far out of character for them... just yet anyway.

Please let me know how I'm doing on this.

Thanks again all,

Chant99


	2. Chapter 1: Let sleeping Demons lay

Chapter One: BETTER TO LET SLEEPING DEMONS LAY

It was her eyes that saved her.

I remember seeing her in the club, dancing just below the stage while the band played. At first when I started playing professionally, I might have dropped the beat when I first noticed her. Now a days, I just keep the rhythm going. I stay in the pocket… keep the groove.

They're not hard to miss if you know what to look for. I'm somewhat of an expert at that. There's far more of them out there then you could possibly know.

But… that's not my life anymore.

I've learned to pretend that they don't exist. Pretend I'm just as oblivious to them as the rest of the world. I have my music, and a relatively good life now, even if I had spent most of it on the road. Going from place-to-place, town-to-town, and club-to-club while I played with various bands.

They don't bother me, I don't bother them. That's been a pretty good philosophy and has worked so far for me… until tonight.

As small as she was, she was kind of hard to miss, even in that packed crowd. Ordinary people seemed to find themselves moving out of her way as she danced, willingly giving her room when space on the floor was at a premium because the place was jammed full with bodies. It wasn't what she was that earned her that strange respectful space, nothing like fear or some other distasteful characteristic, it was more because everyone wanted to watch her move in that eerily graceful way that all her kind had.

Though I'd have to say she had more than her fair share of that charisma. Almost everyone around her was mesmerized by her performance.

I'd learned not to fall for it a long time ago.

She didn't seem to notice her audience, or maybe it was that she just didn't care. Most of the time she danced with her eyes closed, letting the music take her wherever it might. Never wandering far from my end of the stage. The few times I recall seeing her eyes opened, they locked with mine far too many times for my liking. As beautiful as they were, they brought back memories of times I wanted to forget.

However, in those cases when our glances met, she'd smile in my direction as if she had a secret, and then she'd close her eyes once more and go back to swaying and waiving to the beat.

More than one guy came up and tried to get her to dance with them, a few women too. She'd always wave them off with a smile meant not to harm or offend. The more persistent ones who wouldn't take "no" for an answer and insisted on invading her space, she slipped away from within a few seconds, with the ease of a ghost. After her admirers had wandered away shaking their heads in mystified confusion, she'd return to claim her place again and continue to dance.

I did my best to ignore her as much as I could for most of the show, focusing my attention on the neck of my guitar, fingering out the rhythm lines and adding a few new things to distract myself. She wasn't on the hunt – as there was nothing that said a gold-eye wouldn't or couldn't occasionally take a human if they were of the mind to. She'd had plenty of opportunity the entire night to find a victim if that were the case. She had turned each and every one of them away.

Tonight it was all about the music. She just wanted to dance like everyone else, and was no danger to me.

I could live with that.

But I found I couldn't help but return to watch her dance even so. Concentrating on the songs didn't really offer much in the way of a diversion in the long run. I knew them all by heart, could play them all in my sleep, and my fingers worked off the root-chords to make the bass lines without much thought on my part.

I don't know much about fashionable clothing, but I could tell the black and white outfit she wore probably cost more than I would make in six months playing in the band. The scheme complimented her porcelain white skin and ink-black wild hair. The short wild spikes framed her faultless elfin features much too perfectly to be human. She had some type of cloth choker and pendant displayed just so around her ivory neck, near the hollow of her throat… it must have been something important to her because it never seemed to shift very far no matter how vigorously she moved her feet and twisted her body to the music.

And I knew where there was one of her kind, there were generally more. Though I couldn't see much passed the first couple of rows on the floor because of the bright, ever-changing, stage lighting.

During the first break, and every break after that one, she disappeared from view. Which was just as well with me. Had she still hovered near-by that really would have made me feel ill at ease, and set off all sorts of alarm bells. I finally convinced myself that she couldn't possibly know who I was, or who I had once been. And that she was just another vampire enjoying the club scene for the night. I'd run into them countless times as I've said, when you decide to try your hand at being a professional musician you were bound to meet all sorts. Which is one reason I rarely mingle much with the crowd on breaks.

I prefer to keep to myself, while my other band-mates go out and socialize with the audience. I rarely if ever drink, politely refusing all offers from club patrons to buy a round. Saying a short but polite "thank you" whenever someone did manage to corner me to tell me how much they like the show, and then excusing myself as quickly as possible.

I had as little in common with normal people as I did the vampires.

But that had been my life for close to the last 50-years or so. Since I stopped hunting vampires, and trying to eradicate the species from the face of the Earth in my one-man-war.

Since the semi-formal truce, my life has had little else to keep me occupied besides keeping a low profile and disappearing off the vampire's radar.

I had my music, a relatively quite existence these days, and I guess until now… that had been enough.

At the start of each following set, she's back, in her usual spot. By then my band mates had finally noticed her tendency to stay on the floor just in front of me, nor had they missed the occasional eye contact, and they were engaging in some good-natured ribbing at my expense between songs.

I pretty much decided I wouldn't mind killing them myself about then.

Or better yet, maybe introducing them all to one of her red-eyed cousins. But I decided that the distraction the band offered me a few nights a week was just slightly more important to me than arranging their immediate and bloody demise… despite the name of the band, and who the hell thought, _"Bend The Signal"_ was a good name for a band?

The band's name had originated from our guitar player's habitual over-use of his Wah-pedal. I think a better name in that case would have been "Could Use Some Music Lessons" or "Distortion Is My Friend."

Whatever, the audience seemed to like the sound we had, so I guess all personal tastes aside, that was what mattered the most and made the group the money.

Unfortunately, I was positive the little vamp-girl could hear their teasing of me; just by the way she kept giving me that secret smile every time they started ripping on me.

I'm glad at least she was amused by it, but the last thing I wanted was her attention on me at all.

If it hadn't been such a long time since I'd been in serious conflict with the species… I probably would have been real paranoid about then. The girl looked young, no more than maybe 18 or 20-years-old, but that didn't mean much with a vampire. She could be several hundred years old, though I doubt even in that case I'd ever encountered her before.

Most of the vampires who encountered me in those early violent times were dead. Only a handful that could identify me existed to this day… and most of _them_ were involved in helping me disappear.

After the encore, I look around the venue suspiciously but she was now gone. With the house lights up, I inspect the rest of the remaining crowd but only found humans there.

If there were others, they had left with her.

I can't begin to tell you how relieved I felt regardless.

Packing up the gear after the show goes without a hitch. We make fairly good money for a cover band, but not enough to afford roadies like the real rock stars can. As usual I'm the last one out at the end of the night. I'm sort of anal-retentive about leaving equipment behind at a gig. Besides, it's a real pain in the ass sometimes to replace stuff that's gone missing or that had just simply been left behind at the end of the night.

I'm finally out behind the place at the stage door, packing up my own personal gear into the rear of an old Ford Explorer I owned. My stage cabinet and amp head go in first, followed by my road case of odds and ends that I need for the show. Last in is my Zon Legacy Standard Bass guitar in its case.

I'm not a great bass player by any standards. Hell, I'm barely a passable bassist in my own humble opinion, but I love my Zon and its pretty much the only joy I have left to me. Not only has the guitar model not been made in years, but also it took me more than two years of searching high and low before finding one that was for sale.

And at five-grand-plus for a Legacy Standard, you can imagine I'm a little bit touchy and protective about it.

Its strange how the focus of your life can change so radically.

I have no family – not any more. No real friends outside of the band, and they are more acquaintances really than actual friends. They were probably more like casual co-workers than anything else… thus my willingness to consider making them vampire bait earlier tonight.

I have no girlfriend nor have I ever had a wife – though I came close to marrying once long ago. I have no interested in attempting to find another of either. There's just too much pain yet still connected in that type of relationship, and I don't think it was ever meant to be in the cards for me, so its better to just accept that this was how it was meant to be.

And thankfully, I think the part of me that would desire such a thing had been burned out long ago anyway. Decades of constant hatred can do that to you I suppose.

Not that it would be easy for me to explain certain odd things about myself to anyone I might consider getting close to again, even if I wanted to.

My bass gear and music had become pretty much the center of my life now.

Yeah, pathetic I know. But you do the best that you can with what you got to work with.

Which is why I wasn't very happy to hear footsteps running up behind me in a dark back-parking lot, just as I'm getting ready to safely load my pride-and-joy into the back of my Ford.

I turned with the case still in my hand, just as a small figure darted into view under the lone sodium light that lit the small rear lot of the club.

The shape was moving far faster than anyone this side of the grave had the right to be moving. It paused for only the barest of split seconds as it realized I was there in the lot, and then it came right for me at full bore.

"Help me!" said a female voice as the figure closed with me from across the alley that served the back lot as an entrance off the street.

It was then that I could see it was her, the tiny dancing girl from the club… the little dark-haired vampire.

I silently cursed myself; my first thought was that the thing thought I was prey!

Then as I said before, I saw those eyes.

They were still that golden honey brown… that's what initially saved her. Had they been any other color I would have done my best to kill her without a second thought… before she had a clue as to what I was.

It was also then that I realized she wasn't attempting to work a glamour on me. Instead her eyes were actually wild with fear, and then I noticed her gait didn't have the grace it should have… just before she tripped and collided with me in a sprawl that was anything but graceful.

I caught her easily with one arm, and at the same time managed to set my precious bass case safely down besides me. I might have suspected it was still a trick, if I'd never seen a vampire in such honest to god fear before.

She clutched weakly at me with one arm, her small thin hand burying itself in my jacket. Her expensive clothing was torn in several places I could see now… and there was blood coming from a large gash in her slender neck.

"Help…me!" she weakly asked again, with pleading eyes.

And then her weight began to sag on me.

This was bad… this was very, very, bad.

I'd like to say I did something heroic. Like sweeping her up in my arms and assuring her that she was safe and that everything would be all right.

I however did nothing of the sort.

Instead, I looked at her with something that certainly had to amount to confusion and a great deal of dread as her eyes rolled up into the back of her head, and then her full weight became dead in my arm.

Like all vampires, she was slightly heavier than she looked, and I had to snag her with my other hand to keep her from falling over and taking me with her.

I have seen plenty of dead vampires many times, even though they are extremely hard to kill for the most part. But I had never seen or heard of a vampire being knocked unconscious before, which led me to seriously reconsider that the girl was in fact playing me after all.

With vamps, most times things were never what they seemed to be.

It was probably a good thing I set my bass safely down, otherwise I might have gotten really annoyed if I would have had to drop it because of this charade.

Her head rolled limply to one side, and I automatically caught the back of it with one hand without thinking. It was a purely human reaction to the moment, despite my reservations I guess.

I had tried for years to erase such failings, as they tend to be offer points where my guard could go down for just that split second. Though sometimes like now, especially being out of practice… I slipped up.

Luckily it wasn't my undoing. What I discovered in that single involuntarily move laid most of my suspicions to rest immediately.

The girl's hair resting in the palm of my hand I could now feel was thickly matted with blood. It had not been noticeable in the dim light of the light against the natural darkness of her hair.

A closer examination with my fingertips then showed me that the back of her skull had been partially caved in as well.

A human would have been killed instantly by such an injury, but still I was amazed that even she had been able to get up and run after taking that kind of damage. Causing trauma to the brain was one of the few ways I knew of to slow a vampire down even just a little bit.

I could even feel the bone under her hair slowly moving, and skin trying to knit itself back together as I held her.

There was not many things that could harm a vampire to this extend, especially cracking one of their skulls this badly. One of the things that could do it for sure though… was another vampire.

This just went from a 'very, very, bad' situation… to an extremely very, very, bad situation. I was thinking it be best to beat tracks out of there before this became a very, very dead situation… for me.

I wasn't really willing, or of a mind, to be drawn into a clash between vampire covens.

This definitely wasn't my problem, and if I were smart, I'd just lay the girl down on the ground and get the hell out of there before whoever she'd been fighting with showed up to give her the coup de grace.

I was just about to command my knees to bend to do just that, because I found I couldn't bring myself to just drop her after all… poor kid. I even felt a tad bit sorry for her… I just didn't want to become involved in whatever altercation she was into with others of her kind.

I made the mistake of looking at her face again, realizing once more how sweet, young and pretty she looked, and hesitated for a few seconds. Then I remembered how she had lost herself in the joy of dancing earlier that night, and then the look of pure fear in her eyes just a few moments ago as she begged me to help her.

"Dammit!" I swore hotly. I didn't want this! I didn't want to leave her defenseless… but this wasn't my fight.

Then I grudgingly recalled what my past ignorance had caused all those years ago, and I briefly wondered if I was letting it happen all over again. I had been famous for making bad decisions, for acting without all the facts, for causing death were death wasn't warranted.

I owed someone restitution for what I had done, for the mistakes I had made… so why not this girl who pleaded for my help?

I was caught between a rock and the hard place and it froze me for a moment. Getting involved could ruin everything I've made for myself these passed decades. It might also bring me kicking and screaming into the type of spotlight I most definitely wanted to avoid at all costs!

I was still considering what to do with the girl when that decision was taken completely out of my hands. I hadn't been paying attention, and from the shadows of the alleyway leading to the street came a low familiar hiss.

Whoever had stove the girl's head in had shown up to finish the job.

I didn't have long to wait to get a look at the new arrival, as a man bounded into the light and grinned coldly at me. He still had a thick trickle of blood running down his chin from the corner of his mouth. I could smell him even where I was across the small parking lot. Nothing smells worse to me than a vampire whose diet consists solely of human blood. To me its like a slight underlying whiff of decaying meat. But nothing smells of old rust and burning copper as the blood of a vampire taken in the heat of a fight.

That's what I smelled now coming from the newcomer's direction; he'd been feasting on another vampire just recently. I remembered the slash on the girl's throat and wondered if it had been her?

In my past I'd found that nothing was cockier than a tracker vampire; and the only thing worse than a Tracker at being plainly mean… was a Rogue Hunter. Human prey wasn't exciting enough for a Rogue, so they find the sport they were looking for in the hunting of other vampires.

Guess which kind of vamp this guy had to be, bless my luck?

Further bad news on the Rogue account was that they most often hunted in packs, some larger than a normal vamp coven might be. You had to have the numbers on your side if you were going to hunt the big game. Which more than likely didn't bode well for the fate of the girl's companions if she had anyone with her tonight… or the possibility of them coming to the rescue in that case.

So for the moment there was only him, me, and the tiny vampire girl he meant to make a snack of.

I cursed my bad luck again, this time for not having the proper gear to get myself out of this jam. It had been decades since I needed it, so in my new peaceful life, I'd gotten out of the habit of carrying it with me at all times.

The Rogue grinned wider and chuckled lowly at finding me holding the unconscious girl. I could almost see in his mind how much the idea of a two-for-one happy-meal pleased him.

I don't smell like a vamp or a shifter, and I had a heartbeat, so he didn't consider me very much of a threat.

Bad for him, good for me. Stupid vamp.

I carefully eased the girl down to lean her up against the back tire of my vehicle, then stood back up to hold up both opened hands toward him in a peaceful gesture, basically in surrender. I couldn't help the girl's blood that coated the palm of my one hand. I was pretty sure he could scent her wounds anyway, so it probably didn't matter.

"Look buddy… whatever your beef is with your girlfriend here, I don't want any part of it," I told him. "She came running in here and fell into my arms, honest."

I could play the part of a clueless human if I had to too. Sometimes it was my best camouflage.

The Rogue paused under the full light of the parking lot lamp to let me get a good look at his bright red eyes. I guess the gesture was meant to be alarming and I was supposed to be afraid too. He didn't want my blood, just the fun of killing me. And I guess it be extra special for him if I was scared shitless before he did it.

My canine teeth started that old familiar ach in my mouth; I'd forgotten how much I'd always hated that part of what I was.

Instead of focusing on the growing discomfort in my jaw, I played even dumber… which was not too hard considering what I had gotten myself in the middle of.

"Nice contacts," I said with a look that said I pretty much thought I was dealing with a nut-job who liked to play dress-up.

The vampire then gave me a look of utter contempt that told me he'd just come to the decision that I was too stupid to figure out what was going on, and that he wasn't going to waste anymore of his time trying to entertain himself with me any further.

He growled impossibly low for a human, and charged, swinging a lazy haymaker at me that was meant to take my head clean off my neck when it hit.

He was of course extremely fast, much faster than a human.

But so was I.

I'd always had a passion for the Asian martial arts. In fact I've studied several of the more deadly ones over the years. It was kind of a job requisite for the life I had led for quite some time.

The vamp relied mostly on brute force and speed to give him the advantage, and in those departments he did out-class me, not by much, but enough to easily win if I didn't know what I was doing.

I did however have an edge he didn't know about… certain knowledge, and a slightly un-human physiology myself – thanks to another stupid mistake I made a long time ago.

Thinking it would help me secure the vengeance I was seeking, I drank the blood of a tracker vampire I had killed by pure sheer luck and accident. Relying on the stories and fables I heard, I didn't know that you needed the blood of a living vampire to crossover.

Instead, the blood of the dead vamp combined with a human disease of the lymphatic system I suffered from and left me partially transformed… somewhere in the middle between vampire and human.

I did not have their full speed and strength or even their unearthly beauty, but I was faster and stronger than a human. My heart still beat, though at a much slower rate. I also aged, but very, very slowly. On the plus side, I could go out in full sunlight without shimmering like a disco ball.

I'd also found I was immune to their venom – for the most part. Bites were very painful and the amount of pain directly coincided with the amount of venom I adsorbed, but I quickly found that I would never fully complete the change no matter how many bites I suffered.

I was stuck where I am now… somewhere on the vampire evolution line, and not completely human anymore either.

I belonged in neither world.

Being bitten also had another unpleasant side effect that was nearly debilitating, and that lasted until the vampire that bit me was dead.

Just another one of an uncaring god's little jokes I suppose.

It was with these limitations in mind that I began to figure out a ways to even the playing field… so I traveled to Asia and spent the better part of a decade mastering as many martial arts as I could. For as many empty-hand arts I learned, I leaned how to handle a variety of weapons as well, particularly blades.

A nice sharp piece of special steel was the best way to dispatch a vampire, followed quickly by burning the pieces if at all possible.

I have to admit… I use to enjoy the hacking part.

But then again, for about forty-five years I wasn't exactly what you would call sane anyway. I don't believe anyone could have lived what I have been through and rightly called themselves sound of mind.

Before you judge me however… just remember, I didn't ask for this… and I certainly did not start this.

As strong and as fast as my new unwanted playmate was, his weakness was that he still had a body designed basically like a human's, that still had to obey certain laws of physics and design.

Even with my better than human physical edge, it still would have been difficult, if not impossible, for me to halt his blow dead in its tracks. So the secret is not to bother trying. It is however possible and very easy to deflect and/or redirect a blow no matter how much power is behind it.

And that's where martial arts styles like Judo and Aikido come in handy.

My prior success with surviving vampire attacks came from a mixture of some skill and some tactical knowledge, thrown in with a good helping of black-hearted vengeance, a heap of bad attitude, and a whole lot of crazy-ass recklessness.

It also helps if you were able to crazily and literally laugh Death in the face… it keeps them guessing as to what you're all about.

Fighting is like riding a bicycle… you never really forget how once you learn… and even if you did, your body remembered for you if you trained long and hard enough.

Which was lucky for me because I was pretty sure that I was really, really rusty at it. In those cases its best to just do and not think about it.

To a normal human, the Rogue would have been just a blur. To me, he seemed to slow down to a manageable speed as the fight or flight syndrome took over for me. All human experience the effect of things seeming to go into slow motion to some extent while in this state, particularly during a violent encounter.

I let my body do what it had to do as the Rogue's fist sailed in toward my head. With vamps I'd trained myself to do the one thing they never expected a human to do. Instead of backing away, I stepped into his attack at a slight angle.

This of course threw him off and allowed me to use my forearm to guide his fist safely pass me, and not explode my head. My other hand reached up and grabbed him at the shoulder, while in the same move I turned with him in the same direction he was still traveling in.

I added my momentum to his own, and I have to say I thought he was very surprised when I help him accelerate face first into the brick wall of the club.

The Rogue's super hard body hit so hard he actually cracked the cinderblocks that made up the wall.

Had I been normal for a vampire, I could have just ripped his arm off. Unfortunately, I'm not… so I had to act fast and cheat some more if I wanted to live through the next couple of seconds.

I had only managed to stun him for a good second at the most, despite the damage to the bricks. So as his head recoiled off the club wall the first time, I quickly backed that up with several well-timed elbows to the back of his head, smashing his forehead several more times in rapid secession into the same spot… and hopefully rattling his brains enough to buy me a few more precious seconds to inflect damage elsewhere, before he recovered enough to return the favor.

My next target was to exploit that human design weakness I mentioned. He might have had vampire hard bones and vampire tough joints, but his knees were still meant to bend in only one direction and in one direction only.

I drew my nearest leg up as high at I could and stamped it down on the side of his closest knee. Okay, what I really did was stomp down on it until it snapped and I was standing on the ground with his shattered knee under my heel.

He howled at that… and then became really pissed off with me.

His own elbow shot back and nailed me right in the floating ribs, and I think I might have shrieked myself. I was too busy trying to blink away the blinding white light that suddenly blinded my eyes as new and interesting pain filled me to pay much attention as to who was yelling what.

I was also pretty sure at that point that he'd shattered my ribs in repayment by the way they felt.

I do remember landing on my ass, and wondering how somebody managed to set off a grenade in my ribcage without me noticing.

The Rogue tried to stand, but his knee buckled under him and he howled some more. I knew it was only going to be a matter of a minute or so before all my hard work was undone and the knee healed itself. I didn't have that luxury with my aching ribs.

The vamp wasn't going to wait for health to return, and instead began crawling toward me using his hands and pushing off with his one good leg, and all the while describing in great detail how he was going to dissect me slowly for the pure fun of it.

My night was just getting better and better by the moment.

I began kicking myself away from my executioner, surprised that while my ribs hurt like hell, that I didn't feel any ripping pain that meant shards of rib bone was tearing up my internal organs – which I still desperately needed despite my part vampire state.

About two or three scoots backwards, my hand hit something hard and cold. I felt around the object and quickly determined that it was a loose brick that I hadn't noticed.

The Rogue was gaining on me despite his disability and by the time I'd found the piece of masonry, he was pretty much on top of me, so I halted my retreat, keeping the brick in the hand that found it and hidden from his view behind me.

Anything was better than nothing at this point in the game.

"I'm going to rip open your belly and let you watch while I chew on your entrails, human," the creature snarled at me, his sharp inhumanly white teeth less than a foot from my face. "What do you think about that?" he asked with a humorless chuckle.

I was scared. I was angry. And I was getting pissed that he was dismissing my potential to still be trouble so easily. Nothing like wounded pride to cause my canine teeth to slide and lock into full extension. Damn, I hated the way that made my mouth ache like hell.

I didn't have the natural razor sharp teeth and venom that full vampires had. The over-size canines were a distant step on the vampire evolutionary scale, probably going back a few hundred thousand years. Which in vampire society basically made me a Neanderthal as far as they were concerned. More than one of my prior nemeses had remarked that it made me little more than an animal to them.

"Well? What do you think about that, human scum?" he asked again with a smile. I guess he really wanted an answer before tearing me apart. Some people just can't help but need approval for anything they do.

He had started moving the leg that I'd taken out, meaning the knee was just about healed. In his arrogance he still hadn't realized, I wasn't human.

Time to enlighten him.

I smiled brightly… showing him my long fangs.

He blinked in surprise, and cocked his head a little to one side.

"I think… batter up!" I said.

That puzzled him even more than my spiffy new dental gear did… and he cocked his head just a little bit further over.

How very nice of him to oblige me.

I swung the brick around like I was winding up to throw a fastball… and a good part of it shattered to powder against the side of his head and jaw.

"STT-RIKE!" I yelled insanely as the vamp hit the ground next to me. Amazingly, his lower jaw was dislocated and hanging off at a weird angle. He wasn't going to be biting anyone for the next few moments.

Forgetting about my ribs in the excitement of the moment, I rolled to my knees and bashed him in the head several more times with the piece of brick I still held.

When I finally got to my feet, I put a couple of more boots to the Rogue's head with my shoes for good measure. I then took a moment to break both his knees this time, and his arms as well, while he was still helpless to buy me even more time.

I looked around for something that might help me do what needed to be done next. At first, nothing jumped out at me and I began to panic. Then I saw the small panel truck parked in the back corner of the lot and inspiration struck me. It was going to be hard, but I figured it might be able to be done.

I reached down and picked up the biggest hunk of the brick that was left, and then went over to the Rogue. I grabbed him up by the back of his jacket collar and dragged him with me toward the back of the truck.

"You know," I ranted. "You just couldn't leave well enough alone, could you?"

The vamp tried to answer me, but without use of his lower jaw, his words came out in a meaningless slur for the most part. It didn't matter, I was pretty well pump up on the situation and had a whole lot of anger issues at the moment.

"I just wanted to be left alone," I said as I dropped him on the ground behind the panel truck. I was a little more than put out at how the night was ending, so I kicked him in the head again to make myself feel better.

His grunt wasn't all that satisfying as I hoped it would be.

The padlock holding the big roll-down door of the truck was fairly cheap, a single twist on my hand, backed up by my fury, and it snapped right off the latch for me.

"Look at my clothes!" I shouted at him. "I just bought these to wear at work… they're ruined." I rolled the door partway up and looked down at him. "I freakin' hate shopping!"

Yeah, I was pretty much losing it. So I turned to look at the lower edge of the door and found the angled lip I expected to find there.

A few bashes with my half-a-brick straightened out a section of it that I needed, turning it from a bent "L" shape to a straight "I".

I reached down, and heaved the Rogue's body into the bed of the truck, leaving just his head hanging over the edge of the tailgate.

"And do you know what the worst part of the night has been?" my tirade ran at him. I can see by the wild look in his red eyes that the vamp knew what I had in mind next. I reached up and took a firm hold of the door just above his head.

"You made me recite baseball idioms," I informed him. "I _hate_ baseball!"

I yanked down as hard as I could on the door. It's rattling nearly drowned out his wordless cry, but it didn't quite cover the wet whack of the straighten edge cutting into his neck. Regular steel wasn't hard enough to cleanly cut vampire flesh, and I had to raise and ram the door down several more times with all my force to accomplish the task, the metal chopping through the vamp like a dull axe.

Finally I heard the dull thump of his head hitting the ground. I glanced at the door to see the bottom of it all managed and slightly crinkled.

I bent and picked up the head, its eyes blinked at me but it made no sound, seeing it no longer had a set of lungs to make sounds with. It would have been better to burn the head and the body, but starting a fire wasn't an opinion, so decapitation had to be good enough.

I looked around wondering what to do with my new trophy, and soon discover a manhole cover leading to the sewer. I stuck my fingers in the pry gap and lifted the cover from it seating. Somewhere in the darkness below I could hear the sound of fast rushing water.

Perfect.

I smiled at the Rogue's head and wished it happy trails… then dropped it into the hole, hearing a splash almost immediately.

Let's see them try and put that bad boy back together now, I thought.

Sometimes, I could be a real sick puppy.

I replaced the manhole cover, and didn't give the body still in the back of the truck a second thought. The Rogue's friends would probably find it shortly, and without a head to reattach, would probably just burn it themselves… saving me the trouble.

I did still have one pressing problem left to me though.

I made it back to my Ford and found the girl still exactly where I left her. She hadn't moved an inch.

_What to do with her?_ I asked myself. The smart thing would be just to leave her… maybe her friends would find her.

If any of them were still left alive.

But it was more likely that the rest of the group of Rogues would find her first… then all this trouble would have been for nothing. They were probably going to know that the girl didn't rub out their playmate by herself no matter what. If I left her here, she was certainly going to pay the price for it though… and the coven might not give it any more thought if they could take their vengeance out on her.

If I took her with me I thought next, they might think she did it by herself anyway, and I'd be free and clear.

I scratched that thought a second later. My scent and the scent of the fight was going to be all over the area and impossible to hide or erase in any case.

In for a penny, in for a pound of flesh… and I'd decided that I couldn't be cold-blooded enough to just leave her behind totally helpless anyway.

I might as well take her with me and just roll with it.

I first added my precious Zon to the pile of gear taking up the back of the Explorer, then walked around and picked the unconscious girl up.

Damn it, she was a pretty little thing I noticed again, as the parking lot light hit her face. I saw then, that the ugly gash in her throat had just about healed over. That was a good sign I would have to think. I didn't have much experience with nursing vamps back to health… just in killing them.

I had already opened the backseat door to the Ford and I placed her inside as carefully as I could. Not that I could probably do anything to harm her, or hurt her more than she already was at this point.

I quickly searched her pockets, looking for some type of identification, or anything else that might give me an idea of where or who she belonged to. I found nothing but an impressive wad of cash on her.

Turning her over to her own people wasn't going to be an option available to me right away it appeared.

I suddenly remember something else from earlier in the night and reexamined her neck, hoping that I had just not noticed the choker there just a moment ago, the one that she was wearing inside the club – that might have held a clue to who she was.

Unfortunately that was gone also, she had probably lost that in the attack when her throat had been sliced open.

I frowned, looks like this was going to have to be done the hard way. I had tracked plenty of vampire covens down before, but this was going to be the first time I'd done it to return one of their lost sheep to them.

I was just about to close the door on my new charge, when something glinted in the overhead interior light. I flipped the corner of her torn vest over to discover a jeweled pin making a highly stylized capital "A" resting there.

That was something at least. I had to assume the letter "A" stood for the initial of her first name.

I don't know why, but I found myself reaching out to gently stroke the dark spiky hair that framed her elfin features.

"Well, 'A'," I found myself saying to her next. "Welcome to Seattle."

I closed the door, and then got into the driver's seat to start my journey back to my current home with my silent passenger.


	3. Chapter 2: The Angel Closes Her Eyes

Chapter Two: The Angel closes her eyes.

"_**My wounds cry for the grave  
My soul cries for deliverance…"**_

Carlisle Cullen bit down on the first joint of his thumb, and tried to keep his racing mind focused. It was a difficult task not to give into panic and grief considering the heart-rending disaster that had befallen his family in just the last few hours.

Jasper's constant howling of anguish didn't help matters much, but Carlisle could hardly blame his son.

He wanted to howl just as loudly himself.

Surprisingly, outside the home, Jake and his wolf pack were howling, seemingly in answer to Jasper's heartache… or perhaps they only sensed Bella's distress and were responding to that?

"Esme, please," he finally asked his wife. "See to Jasper… I need time to think clearly."

His beautiful wife's eyes held the same shadows of anguish that his did, but she silently nodded and with Rosalie's help, led their distraught son away to try and find some comfort for him.

The tall blonde coven leader turned to his two other remaining sons.

"Are you both sure?" he asked again for the forth time. "You saw her get bit?"

"Alice was guarding our retreat," Edward retold the story. "We first assumed they were after Bella, drawn to her because she was in our company, just as James had been. One of them was on Alice, and at her throat before we realized that wasn't the case. I think Alice was so worried for Bella, that she didn't see it for herself either until it was too later."

Emmett scowled and sore darkly.

"We all expected them to try and get passed us to get at Bells," Emmett added firmly. "There were only two of them to start and we thought we could handle them, Carlisle. Then four more of the bastards ambushed us from behind before we could get back to Alice."

"Rogues," Carlisle said, feeling his stomach tighten.

"We didn't grasp the fact they were hunting _us_ and not Bella until it was too late," Edward responded with a nod.

The clothing of both his sons was little more than rags, as neither of them had bothered changing yet. The battered condition of both his larger sons didn't bode well for the fate of his tiny daughter. Both boys also had still healing wounds from the attack.

"Carlisle… I'm so sorry!" Bella Swan spoke up for the first time from her place on the long couch, her voice merely a harsh whisper now from all of her distraught weeping. "If Rose and Jasper hadn't been busy getting me to safety, they would have been there to help Edward and Emmett save Alice. Jasper would have been there for her if not for me! It's all my fault!"

Carlisle turned to gaze at the human girl, and his heart started a new ache his newest daughter. Next to Edward, Bella had become closest to Alice within the family, and the girl was grieving just as much as the rest of them who had been Alice's family for decades.

"Hush now, Bella," he said gently. "This is not your fault at all. None of it is."

"We've all told her that," Edward added, while Emmett nodded in confirmation. Carlisle added his own nod to Emmett's in agreement.

"But it is!" Bella insisted. "Jasper felt something was wrong with Alice, but he refused to leave me to go to her. I begged him to go, but he wouldn't even though I could see it was killing him! Rose wouldn't go either because she thought it might be a trick to get at me."

Carlisle looked at his youngest son for confirmation of Bella's claim.

Edward grimly nodded.

"Jasper stayed with Bella until Emmett and I arrived back at the car. He was trying to prove he could be trusted to watch over her after the incident during her birthday."

"You know how he gets over that 'word of honor' crap," Emmett added from the side.

"He tried to go back after Alice by himself once we joined them, but Emmett and I wouldn't let him. It would have been suicide. We both barely got out with our lives… we just couldn't let him risk it," Edward finished.

The eyes of both his sons were nearly black with thirst, and he was pleased despite the grim circumstance that neither one of them seemed to notice or interested in Bella's human blood at the moment. Their thirst was for vengeance… for their lost sister.

And at the moment, so was his… regardless of the peaceful life he always tried to maintain.

Bella had not stopped crying since the attack, when she realized that Alice had not returned with her brothers, and that Jasper's sudden fear had come true.

Edward also had to physically restrain her from going back to find his sister. Emmett was the biggest and the strongest of their family, and he had gotten torn up pretty good in the ambush himself… what chance would a mere human girl have against an organized pack of Rogues?

They had all barely escaped the sudden nightmare with their lives. Lives that Alice had bought and paid for with her own.

Emmett and Rosalie both had their hands full with Jasper all the way home. Alice's long time lover and husband had tore apart the leather seats in the back of the new BMW trying to break free from his protective siblings. Edward himself could do nothing but drive them all to safety while keeping a reassuring arm around a shaken and crying Bella.

Retreat had not sat very well with either Emmett or Edward, but they were outnumbered and Edward had sworn to always protect Bella no matter what.

They'd had no other options left to them… unless they all wanted to die.

Like poor Alice.

"It is my fault!" Bella insisted once more. "Jasper should have been with her! But he wanted to prove himself. He was still trying to make up for my birthday! He should have been with her. Alice should be sitting here, not me!"

"They didn't want you," Emmett nearly barked. "It was a damn set-up. Rogues don't waste their time on humans… not even ones that smell as good as you do. They wanted us."

"Emmett's right, Bella," Carlisle confirmed. "They are a different breed of vampire all together. They aren't interested in human blood… not even yours like Emmett said."

"So what the hell were Rogues doing in Seattle?" Edward growled. "Why are the local covens allowing them to stay in their territory?"

"I truly don't know, Edward," Carlisle said thoughtfully. "Seattle is a free territory for the most part under law, but the resident covens should have run them out or killed them. They might be nomads who just recently arrived, and who are just passing through."

"And you don't think the locals wouldn't have noticed them right away?" Emmett asked with some doubt. "I find that damn hard to believe."

"As do I. I was only contemplating one possible explanation," Carlisle admitted. "But I'm forced to believe given some recent rumors that the most pragmatic explanation is that they are there at the behest of one of the resident covens. There maybe a shift in supremacy looming in Seattle, and the local covens are bringing in allies to strengthen their power base before all out conflict begins."

Edward now cursed just as darkly as his brother had done just a while ago.

"What's all that mean?" asked Bella as she tried wiping away tears, only to have them replaced by fresh ones almost immediately. All this vampire culture was still new to her, and she'd never heard the Cullens speak of 'Rogues' before this night.

"It basically means, since we weren't affiliated with any of the local covens in Seattle… that we were fair game for the Rogues," her boyfriend explained.

From another room, Jasper howled again, and something large and heavy was smashed.

"Whatever it means," Emmett said through gritted teeth. "We're going to go back there and kill every one of them bastards for what they did to Alice."

"For damned sure," Edward agreed.

Bella glanced up at him, this time with fear in her eyes for her beloved, and his huge older brother. She had witnessed firsthand what almost happened to them both tonight. She never in her wildest dreams since coming to understand what the Cullens were, thought that she'd ever see anything outside of the Volturi that could possibly be a threat to any of them.

During the brief part of the savage assault she'd seen before Rose and Jasper had whisked her away, she'd saw the massive Emmett be overwhelmed by three attackers, leaving her to fear for her Edward's welfare as she thought they were fighting to protect her from the new group of vampires.

Now knowing she hadn't been the target of the ambush at all, she feared greatly her new family wouldn't survive a second encounter with the group of vampire hunters. After all, this wasn't like the Tracker James and his small set, how could the Cullens hope to prevail over a coven of vampires who fed solely on other vampires for survival?

"Alice wouldn't want this," she murmured. Edward patted her hand in understanding, but didn't say anything to indicate he or Emmett was going to change their minds about seeking vengeance.

"Are you absolutely positive…" Carlisle asked again. "That there's no chance Alice could have gotten away?"

Edward paused to glance at his older brother before answering again. Emmett looked down at the floor, and after a moment shook his head negatively. Edward turned back to look at his father.

"There was so many of them, and they planned the attack too well," he replied. "When I got free and was able to look, she was gone and there was only a huge spot of blood in the place where she had been attacked. It had Alice's scent to it."

"It was like they picked her out," Emmett snapped. "Like they were trying to keep Edward and me busy while they took her down."

Edward glanced at his brother, having heard Emmett's theory a few times that night. He could give no logical explanation for his belief, other than he'd felt that the initial attack lack any sincerity in it. Emmett claimed that he felt the Rogue's weren't really serious about taking Edward and himself down until after they had gotten Alice. Edward supposed if anyone knew about the mechanics of brawling, it would be Emmett.

"I can't say if you are right or wrong about that, Em. As there were too many of them for me to clearly hear what anyone one of them was thinking," Edward admitted, and then continued, "I have to believe that they dragged Alice away while we were occupied, perhaps to drain her body later. Emmett was still fighting for his life and needed my help, so I rushed in and managed to pull him out. It was a running fight all the way. We barely made it back to the car ourselves."

"Did you try her cell phone?" the doctor asked next, hoping against hope that it might have been over-looked in their rush to survive, and may lead to a positive clue to Alice's fate within the next few minutes.

"That was the first thing I tried when we got back to the car and were moving. We risked circling the area for several minutes hoping we'd find something," Edward responded with a small shake of his head. He knew what his father was thinking and hoping because he could plainly see it in his mind. "It was answered with a low growl and then a amused laugh. The voice was male. Whoever had it obviously smashed it next and the signal was lost. I tried redialing several times before we gave up and left the area for home… but all I got was a 'line unavailable' message."

"And if the phone was destroyed, that means there's no possibility of using its GPS function to locate it?"

Edward again shook his head sadly. "That's probably why they made sure to destroy it."

Carlisle nodded in understanding as that slim hope died, and closed his eyes. He'd been wishing in vain that there might have been some small shred of hope remaining for his middle daughter.


	4. Chapter 3: Bring Me To Life

Chapter Three: Bring me to life.

"Wake me up  
(Bid my blood to run)  
I can't wake up  
(Before I come undone)  
Save me  
(Save me from the nothing I've become)…"

I looked down at the unconscious vamp-girl… and wondered what in blazes I was to do next with her, now that I had gotten her to my home.

I'd made it back with her without further trouble, from the living or undead, to the small ranch-style house I rented on the outskirts of the city, in the small suburb of Beacon Hill.

Getting her inside was just about as easy as carrying in the rest of my band gear. She was still little more than a small lifeless lump in my arms.

What I was supposed to do with her, or even could do for her… that was a whole other issue. I wasn't a doctor of human medicine… let alone of vampire medicine.

Without the benefit of a better plan for the moment, I took the girl to my spare bedroom and laid her out on the bed there. I noticed that the blood left matted in her short hair was staining the bedspread, so I decide that taking care of that should probably be my next priority.

Not much help in the first-aid department, but it was a start.

From the guest bathroom I brought in a bowl of hot water and several clean washcloths and towels. I don't have a lot of practice being a caregiver; in fact I had no experience as a nurse other than occasionally patching up myself, so my attempts to clean this poor girl up were fairly clumsy at best. The vampire must have gotten something on herself or her clothing in her flight, because while I did my best to wipe away the old clots, something was irritating my nose. It was actually more like a vague scent of some kind, and wasn't all that unpleasant upon reflection, but for some reason it also made my upper jaw arch slightly. I concluded that perhaps the girl was wearing some type of rare perfume, and I had not noticed it until that moment.

Despite my ineptitude, I shortly had most of her hair cleaned of the matted blood, though the process left her previously spiky hairstyle reminding me more of a drowned rat now. The odd scent had faded by then, and I assumed it had been some sort of fragrance that I had washed away with the blood.

I also had made note that by then, the bone of her skull had fused itself back together, and her head wound was virtually nonexistent. It puzzled me then, why she had not regained consciousness at that point? Hell, it puzzled me how she could even be knocked out in the first place!

As I said, not having the slightest clue into vampire medicine – if there were such a thing actually – I was left to assume that having her skull nearly crushed gave her brain a good rattling.

That explanation was as good as any, and it was actually something I had some experience with, so that theory sounded most reasonable for the time being.

I set the bowl and used cloths aside to clean up later, and next considered that unless I wanted to mess up the rest of my guest room linen, I'd better remove her bloody and torn clothing as well.

What followed was a fiasco of nearly pointless and non-productive acrobatics as I tried to manipulate the girl's body around her trashed clothing.

I was beginning to not be sure if having her corpse in a totally limp state or a totally stiff state would have been easier to achieve that goal. They way it was now, somewhere between the two conditions, was purely non-cooperative for the task at hand.

I was just getting frustrated enough to simply cut the defiant clothing off when I stumbled on the proper technique for stripping a nearly lifeless body.

Once I had her down to her undershirt and panties, I rolled her around while I stripped off the soiled and bloody bedspread from under her. I paused to inspect my progress and decided to at least cover her with the bed sheet for some proper decorum. After another fun session of 'spin-the-vampire', I had her under the covers to my satisfaction.

"This is too much like work," I muttered to myself as I regarded her with the pale blue sheet pulled up to just under her elfin-like chin. I'd already made note that she lacked any respiratory reaction as I adjusted her around the bed, nor did she have a heartbeat, but that didn't mean a whole lot with vamps because they have neither really.

I probably didn't even have to cover her with the sheet, as I doubt very much that she'd get cold.

It just seemed like the thing to do… and I was desperately short on the right things to do.

I was really out of my element now.

I sat down on the edge of the bed, as I pondered the next useless thing I could do. She looked much better now than when she ran into me in the club's back lot, except for the being unconscious thing that is. Her wounds had healed up nicely as far as I could tell.

I wondered when and if she'll wake up?

That final thought gave me pause. An injured vampire was going to be very thirsty when they're through healing.

I had nothing to give this one when she wakes up… except for me.

That wasn't on my list of things to do tonight. I was strong, stronger than a normal human for sure, but she was stronger still… and no doubt was going to be in a very testy mood when she opened her eyes.

Great, just great! Now what did I get myself into without thinking it through first?

I examined my rather limited options.

Chaining her to the bed itself was pointless. It was just a cheap Wal-Mart special made of pressboard with a veneer to look like walnut, so that wouldn't have done much good at all. She'd snapped the bed frame into toothpicks without even noticing.

Taking her somewhere and dumping her, was a viable alternative… but that would just mean somebody else would die when she woke up. Attractive… but not very nice. Nope, probably shouldn't do that.

I could kill her _before_ she woke up and that would be the end of the problem? Workable… but then I would have gone through all this for nothing, and I'd always hated doing pointless things.

That in itself was a stupid reason not to just kill her, but I tried not to examine it too closely.

I finally got up and went down into my basement, to the storeroom that I rarely went into anymore. From a dusty rack I took down a sheathed Banshee bush knife. The twenty-inch long blade was weighted more at the tip, and would shear a vamp's head off in one blow.

It had sheared off more than one vamp's head with a single blow in years gone by.

If my unexpected houseguest should forget her manners, the blade would certainly correct the situation.

I remembered her dancing at the club tonight, and found myself thinking it would be a shame if it came down to that.

Plus it would really make a mess of my guest room.

Well, it was the best idea I could come up with, so we'll just see how congenial my new roommate was going to be when she came around and take it from there.

I strung the sheath over my back with the knife's handle hanging down. It felt like an old friend who I haven't seen in years.

I returned to the guest room to wait… I settled into a lounge chair in the corner of the room and tried to figure out what I was going to do about feeding my guest, if I didn't have to kill her right away when she woke up.

I used a scratch pad to jot down a few ideas, and a short list of names of people who I thought might be still alive, and who owed me favors that might be able to help.

That list of names was a lot shorter than I would have liked it to be, but what could I expect after being out of circulation for almost 50 years?

Living as long as I have makes reliable networking hard.

It was about an hour later, when one of her feet moved just the barest of an inch. I was out of my chair in a shot and by the bed as she started to stir even more. I frowned as my right hand reached back and grasped the handle of the Banshee, getting ready to drag it out in a reverse-hand draw if she came up all teeth and bad attitude.

Oddly the girl was coming around slowly instead of just snapping instantly awake. She even tried to stretch in a cute way, but winced at the sudden pain the movement had caused her.

She frowned, probably at the unexpected aches, and then cracked open her eyes. The single table lamp in the bedroom blinded her for an instant. She jammed her lids closed for a few seconds and threw her hands over them for extra protection. I could see even that simple move caused her more pain, as her lips twisted and she slightly moaned under her breath.

Eventually she took her hands away, and then slowly eased her eyelids opened a second time to let her eyes adjust to the light.

I involuntarily drew an inch of blade when I saw that her irises were completely black.

She narrowed her eyes then, as if she were having trouble focusing on me for a minute. Her delicate nostrils flared slightly as she tested the air automatically.

Then her perfect lips twisted into a slight frown of confusion.

Thankfully however, she didn't lunge at me like I thought she would… even though I knew she had to have smelled my blood, and heard even my slowly beating heart.

"Wh-at?" she tried to ask in a dry voice after a few more seconds of staring at me. "Who…?"

"You're safe," I told her first thing; the last thing I definitely wanted on my hands was a panicky vampire. I kept well away from her, still not willing to get all that close with her eyes that thirsty black color. "Do you remember what happened?" I probed next, to see if she recalled.

She only frowned at me some more.

"No," she croaked out slowly. "Wh-ere am…"

"You're in my home," I answered. "It's okay now, but you were attacked earlier tonight and wandered into me, so I brought you here."

I wasn't thrilled with spilling that little tidbit of information right at the moment, but I'd been hoping she'd remember and fill me in on what happened. Especially seeing I've risked exposing myself by having to kill her playmate. I needed answers just as much as she did to figure out exactly how much trouble I've gotten myself into on that account.

"Attacked?" she repeated with wild bewilderment. It took a moment for her to process the information and _then_ she began to look like she might panic. She tried to rise up off the pillow but could barely pick her head up an inch before she groaned loudly in discomfort, and let it fall back to the pillow again.

"Relax. You're safe here," I repeated, inwardly glad she was in no shape to put up much of a fight. I took a chance and moved to sit back on the bed beside her.

I pretty much believed she was probably too weak to do much of anything, but I still keep my right hand behind me on the big knife just in case it was a trick. I gently pressed her shoulder down with my left to keep her from trying to get up again, and I made a conscious effort to not make the gesture seem too threatening to her.

I was very surprised when I had to use very little force to keep her there… but then again, maybe the pain she was in was not making it very appealing to her to object at the moment either.

She moaned for a second longer as she tried to settle herself back on the mattress and pillow, and then looked back up at me to give me that befuddled frown once more.

"Who… you?" she asked slowly.

"You can call me, Kage," I said, giving her the name I've used on and off for almost a century or so. Obviously it wasn't my real name, the one I had been born with. I've had so many aliases by then that I really couldn't recall for sure which name had been the one my parents had given me. Kage was Japanese for shadow or shade; it pretty much described me to a 'T' anyway. I had chosen it during my time studying the arts in Japan, and its stayed with me ever since then for the most part.

I guess when you have to reinvent yourself every twenty years or so and take on a new identity for the outside world to see; it helps to at least have something to always privately call yourself so you didn't become totally lost in time.

"You were at a nightclub tonight, and ran into me in the parking lot afterwards. There you collapsed on me and I brought you here so you'd be safe," I continued to tell her again. I didn't see any point in mentioning the Rogue Vamp just yet, until I can be sure where her head was at and what she remembered. Like I said, I in no way, shape, or form, wanted a freaked out vampire on my hands, no matter how small and sickly she was at the moment.

"Can you tell me your name?" I asked next.

She started to say something but faltered. The girl made several more false starts and stops as she tried to drag something up from her memory, but nothing popped up for her. The look on her face now quickly grew into one of frustration.

"Can't… remember," she finally got out. Her voice was still a bit raspy, but it seemed to be getting a little stronger.

"That's okay, don't worry about it right now," I assured her. "You did take a rather nasty bump to your head." If you can call having your skull partially crushed by a cannibal vampire _'a nasty bump'_ that is. "Is there someone I can call for you?" I then tried next, hoping that would jog a reflex memory before she could put too much thought into it and jam her recall again.

The girl really thought hard for a moment, then said, "I don't… know that either."

"That's fine too. It will come back to you later after you get some rest."

The vampire-girl tried to nod in agreement, but that obviously made her head hurt worse, and she reached up to hold it with both hands as she rode out the new waves of pain.

"Head hurts…" she cried weakly, "…and thirsty!"

That's was the one thing I definitely didn't want to hear coming from her… the thirsty part that is.

She tried to look around, but it was clear for the moment she didn't know what she was looking for, or what exactly she wanted. She only knew she had a burning craving, and I was pretty sure she was going to be connecting the dots on that matter fairly soon.

I cursed silently, what the hell was I thinking bringing her back here?

I was totally unprepared to care for anyone like her… let alone, had any experience at it.

"So thirsty," she repeated pitifully a few moments later, as she licked her lips.

She then looked at me with pleading eyes. Asking me silently to help her because she didn't know how to help herself.

By all rights, she should have instinctively gone for my throat long before now.

"So… so thirsty… it hurts… so bad!" she said.

Her eyes began to well up with tears that I knew were basically pure venom because vampire couldn't cry real human tears. But the pain that caused them was obviously genuine… of that for some strange reason I had no doubt.

And still in what had to be growing agony, she just lay there, confused and hurting… and looking very, very lost.

She kept looking to me with hope that I could fix the problem… to make her pain go away.

Damn it! There was no getting around this!

I brought her here in an attempt to help, now I had to fully commit to that end and roll the dice… or it had all been pointless. I certainly hoped that small group of vamps who helped me disappear all those decades ago appreciate how I was finally going to be getting around to repaying their favor!

"Listen to me… listen to me!" I nearly had to yell to get her to focus on my words again. Her hunger was gnawing deeply at her now… and the only thing she could do about it was cry.

"I'm going to help you, but you have to do exactly as I say. If you don't… there's going to be real trouble and neither one of us want that."

She rolled her eyes at me now, like she was barely able to stay with me.

"What… talkin' bout?" she tried to get out. Cords of muscle stood out in her thin neck as she fought against her internal demons. She spoke through bare and gritted teeth, but I got the impression it was more to lock in her screams than any sort of a threat or desire to tear out my throat.

"Just do as I say," I reminded her; feeling that I was going to really regret the supremely dumb thing I was about to do.

Underneath me, the mattress began to vibrate as her limbs and torso shuddered with pain.

I drew the Banshee before I could talk myself out of it. This could go bad in some many ways… I am really, really stupid I kept silently telling myself.

But then again, I really was never one to heed my own good advice.

Good to see no matter how old I get, some things never change, right?

I place the razor sharp steel at the inside of my left wrist just under my palm and thumb, tossed off a quick prayer to a god I'd haven't spoken to in nearly eighty years, dragged in a breath to brace myself and held it, and then drew the blade a short distance across my flesh.

At first it was cold… then it stung… then it began to burn like hell.

Oh yeah, I was right… this was really not one of my brightest ideas ever!

I need both my hands and arms free, so with a light snap of my right wrist I flicked the heavy blade into the floorboards by my foot, where I could reach it quickly if this all went to hell in a hand basket in a hurry. It stuck there with a dull heavy thud.

I'd worry about the damage to my carpet and floorboards later.

That is, if I had a later after this stunt.

I leaned in and with my free right hand lifted her head to support it.

"I'm going to put my wrist at your lips," I explained to her slowly so she'd understand as clearly as possible. "Don't bite! Do not use your teeth," I warned firmly. If she bit and broke my skin, the consequences were going to be really unpleasant to say the least… for the both of us.

She looked up at me, dazed and confused, and I had no real idea if she understood me or not. Not much else I could do about it at the moment, I cautiously moved my arm toward her to do just as I said I would… getting really to whip it out of her reach and go for the Banshee should she lunge at me like the bloodsucking demon I knew she was.

If I'd lived a thousand years longer than I already have, I wouldn't have expected what happened next.

Her eyes suddenly focused on my bloody wrist, and she drew away from me with a look of absolute horror on her pretty features.

"Hold still," I complained, and tried again. She shied away this time as well and started to weakly try and fight me off.

This was certainly an unexpected turn of events. I had fully expected that I would have to fight to yank her head away from the wound in my wrist, not fight to push her toward my blood!

What kind of vampire turns her nose up at free blood?

It was then that I realized… she didn't know what she was!

She had no clue that she needed my blood.

This was just a fine piece of work. I never dreamed I would freely offer a vamp my blood, let alone have to argue with a vampire to get her to take it.

Who said god didn't have a twisted sense of humor?

It turned out it was a good thing she was so weak after all, as I finally got my wrist close enough to her after about another half minute of struggle.

She cried out as a few droplets of my blood dripped down onto her lips. Her tongue came out involuntarily and wiped the red fluid away.

Suddenly she ceased fighting me, as her body told her this is what she needed. Now I had to be sure to keep her from becoming too greedy and sinking her teeth into me. I had been bitten in the past more time then I can actually recall since becoming a half-breed, maybe better than a hundred times, and I knew her venom wouldn't turn me. I was permanently stuck at some primordial halfway mark for the rest of my unnaturally long life.

But I also knew from experience that the venom would burn like fire, and I particularly didn't want the nasty after-effect that would follow the bite.

That side-effect was one of the things that in the past was always sure to piss me off… if not drive me half mad.

We eventually settled into a silent form of truce, where I let her lock her lips to my wrist and take what she needed. However, I kept my free hand locked firmly in the hair at the back of her neck to keep her from digging in too deep.

She didn't seem to notice that precaution as she drew on me, and I actually doubted that it would do much good if she decided to drain me… it just made me feel better is all really.

"Don't get use to this," I muttered, more to make myself feel comfortable with what was going on, than to warn her. She only looked at me for a moment, and then closed her eyes as she kept feeding.

I let her take from me for about a minute, and then decided I'd given enough to her and disengaged. She fought me for only the barest instant but let go, which surprised me. Instead of becoming angry at being denied more, she actually looked a little bit peaceful now.

I concluded that she must have been so weak that the little bit I gave her was enough for the moment.

"Thank you," she managed to say, as she licked her lips clean. "Better."

"Don't mention it," I tossed out as I put pressure on my slashed wrist. Luckily, I heal a little bit faster than a normal human. Not as quick as a vamp, but quick enough to stop the bleeding of even this type of wound within a minute or so.

She watched me for a moment, sometimes smacking her lips as if trying to determine an unfamiliar flavor on her taste buds. I also noticed that her eyelids seemed to begin to droop a bit.

"Funny," she said, and then her eyes closed completely and stayed that way.

She was back… asleep – for lack of a better term.

By 'funny' I didn't know if she meant the situation or the taste of my blood. It could have been either way… or both for all I knew.

What I did know, it wasn't natural for vamps to sleep or slip into comas.

I sleep for about three or four hours a day normally, sometimes as much as six if I was feeling particularly lazy or indulgent, but I was only half-vampire – and I also had a heartbeat.

There had had to be something much more seriously wrong with this girl besides the lost memory if she was going to keep going unconscious like this.

I was going to have to find someone who might have some answers on the situation… before I killed the girl or let her die because of my foolish ignorance.

That thought didn't sit too well with me, mostly because my ignorance had already caused enough harm to innocents in the past. The girl had played me straight when she should have been rearing to rip into me and drain me dry to heal herself, so I didn't want to harm or kill her unless she gave me a good reason… and I certainly didn't want to do either to her because I didn't have a clue as to what I was doing.

I drew the sheets back up under her chin, and then went to boot up my laptop to look for some of those answers.


	5. Chapter 4: I tried to kill the pain

Chapter Four: I tried to kill the pain, but only brought more

"_**I lay dying and I'm pouring,  
Crimson regret,  
And betrayal**_

I'm dying, praying,  
Bleeding, I'm screaming,  
Am I too lost to be saved?  
Am I too lost?"

It was pretty lucky for me that I thought I knew of a reasonable place to start looking for the answers I needed.

While my computer warmed up, I tried to recall what I knew about vampires in general, which still didn't amount to much as far as caring for one. What I had been good at years ago… was killing them. I finally remembered something curious that I had been given as an odd form of civility that might be helpful, something that I had all but nearly forgotten in the last part of this new century.

I left the large Banshee knife sticking in the floor by the bed, figuring I would not have need of it for a while. The vampire girl was totally out of it again, deep in that unnatural slumber, looking like a corpse for all intensive purposes.

However, her skin had now recovered some of its natural smooth marble coloring and tone again, probably from my blood donation. Her face even glowed with that odd eternal vampire beauty they all had, instead of that sickly pale she'd had when I originally brought her into the bedroom.

She looked a bit more like that dancing sprite from the nightclub.

I made a quick stop in the spare bathroom, grabbing a roll of tape and one of bandage gauze; I quickly bound up the still healing slice in my wrist. It would be a few hours before it was totally gone, and where I was going next, I didn't want the bother of any dust or dirt getting into it.

I glanced up and caught my reflection in the mirror over the small sink, and it made me pause for a moment.

The unearthly beauty of vampires had always disgusted me in the past, mostly because I knew it for what it was… simply a lure to help entice their victims to them. Seeing it had always set my teeth on edge, maybe that's one of the reason I'd never been affected by the power of that glamour.

That girl on the bed however, some strange inner voice was telling me she was something more than just a common undead predator. Her glow seemed to come more from her inner soul than from a hunting tool, as I reflected on it, I think that's what bothered me most on stage tonight while she danced in front of me.

Even if I was no longer at war with them, I didn't really want to view her or any vampire in that way, because I knew them for what they were. Even though the color of her eyes told me she was one of the few that didn't hunt humans for food, I knew better than to think that meant she could be trusted or that I should let my guard down.

Even after all this time of peace, I still didn't want to give any of them a human quality, so I had done my best on stage to look away from her all night long. Looking back on it now, I wonder if that was what was keeping her so amused? I consider the thought only briefly before discarding it, as that would mean that the vamp girl was aware that I knew what she was, and I highly doubted that could be the case.

I looked back myself in the mirror, and thought how laughable and contradicting my prejudice was.

In truth, I wasn't anymore human than that girl in my spare bedroom was. I didn't have the strange attractiveness that lured humans that full vampires had, but I in fact shared some of their other traits.

I had by a quirky twist of fate turned myself when I was twenty-five years old, and dying of what now in modern times is known as Hodgkin's disease, a sickness of the lymphatic system.

In the looking-glass staring back at me was the face of a man in his mid-thirties, though it had taken me the better part of ninety-five years to age those extra ten years and get here.

I still had the blue eyes I had been born, and that never changed, except for occasional times when the fangs came out. Long dark brown hair that I've had off and on since the 60's to somewhat change my appearance, and that now went down passed my shoulders to my upper back in true rock-star style. And at just an inch over six-foot tall, I was pretty average for the most part in my humble opinion.

I was no longer sick with a life threatening illness of course, but as I already noted, I was aging at a rate much slower than humans. My heart still beat, but much slower than a human's heart beat most times. My body temperature also was slightly cooler, blood pressure slightly lower, my skin a little tougher than human but nowhere near as almost indestructible as a full vampire's.

I had some of the natural weapons of a true vampire, to some extent – if you wanted to stretch the facts a might bit.

My teeth were nearly perfect, no cavities or wear, and there never will be. But I would wager that they weren't as tough and sharp as a true vamp's. The retracting fangs I had were a throwback to somewhere back in the vampire genetic line, before they lost them and evolved to better blend in with their prey… the human race.

A true vampire's fingers and nails looked normal but could crush stone into powder. Mine were nowhere near as powerful and my nails would change into sharp claws if I wanted them… or if I became really annoyed with someone or something. They seem to be able to slash through a lot of things, the most surprising of which is vampire flesh. There were many instants in my early days where that attribute saved my fool life.

Like the fangs, the claws gave me a creepy feeling when they changed, so I avoided that as much as possible. Avoiding as many creepy feelings as I could was also another reason why I prefer bladed weapons to my natural ones.

And of course, I have no venom.

Lacking such, I very much doubt that I have the ability to change anyone else into a vampire like me, but then again to be honest I've never tried. I never wanted to sentence another soul to this living hell and I never will.

That beautiful girl in the other room, deep in whatever infirmity currently held her, would always be about nineteen, and would remain so forever… unless she were somehow destroyed.

I was getting slowly older… and I think would eventually die of old age… if someone or something along the way didn't kill me first.

I think I got the better deal all considered.

I turned the bathroom light off on my way out, and moved quietly thorough the bedroom and out the door, not that there was really any real need for silence with the vamp out cold.

I returned to the same storeroom in the basement where I had retrieved the Banshee from less than an hour ago. I turned on the single hanging light, and began to sort though a few dusty crates and footlockers I also kept there.

I thought there was a pretty good chance that I might never find what I was looking for, I was never one for organizing things that I didn't deem important to my survival. Lady Luck smiled on me, and I did come across the item I wanted in one of the first lockers I searched.

I pulled my prize from the musty depths of the trunk and blew a light coating of dust from its heavy cardboard cover. I cracked open the first few pages, to find the neatly typed pages were still almost pristine. Whatever paper that crazy vampire had used for his manuscript had to have been very expensive back then, to look this good after fifty-plus years.

In my hand, I held one of only five supposed copies of a tome that was the sum of all known vampire medical knowledge - as of about fifty-five years ago. This had been a parting gift from one of the three non-human hunting vampires who had struck a truce with me half a century ago, ending my one-man war against vampire kind.

The vamp that had given this thick volume to me, had hoped that I would allow him to study me and my condition after our bargain had been struck. He theorized after hearing a brief narration of my history that possibly my illness with that particular form of cancer, at the point where I turned, may or may not have had something to do with me being stuck as a early form of vampire.

I declined to be his lab rat of course. He accepted my disinterest graciously, but gave me the book on vampire medical knowledge he had been compiling, in the hopes that I would read it and someday reconsider his request.

Until today, I had never really opened it.

Thinking about it, brought back other memories of my past. I seemed to have misplaced, or lost, a lot about myself over the years. But there were some things I never could forget… because they had been burned into my mind and soul.

As I said, I became a half-breed vampire at 25 years of age, while slowly dying of a form of cancer at the time.

And after vampires had killed the only good thing god had seen fit to give me in my short life. My dear Stephanie Rachael had agreed to grant me my dying wish, to marry me even though she knew I wasn't much longer for the world.

The year was 1914 and I had been born in 1889 in Buffalo, New York. Less than a month before Stephanie and I were to wed, we were strolling through a local park one evening, on one of my rare better feeling nights when I hadn't been so tired, when three strangers appeared in our path from seemingly out of nowhere.

To make a long story short, they attacked like nothing human could, beating down my already failing body, and ripped Stephanie to pieces in their bloodlust… right before my eyes.

Like many others of the era, I had read Bram's book about the bloodsucking demon, Dracula. Insane as it might sound to any normal person, it wasn't hard to believe in such monsters at the moment. Not when they were drinking her blood down right before me. I thought I might have been mad, to see such a waking nightmare.

I remembered vainly hoping that Stephanie would shake me awake… but I was never to wake up from this dream.

Me, the fiends discarded as being too diseased for their taste. Apparently they could smell the sickness in me, and it disgusted them! They did find some sport to have with me however; they liked the idea of making me watch as they destroyed the only purely good thing I'd ever known outside of my parents.

One of the creatures always kept me pinned to the ground with one foot while the other two fed on my beloved. Not that I could have done much with what I judged to be several broken ribs anyway, even if they had been only mortal men.

When they were finished, two departed – having gotten what they came for, leaving the third to clean up and finish me off.

By his superior attitude, he seemed to be special among the group. He seem to take great pleasure in taunting me, telling me how he had been _tracking_ Stephanie for two days until that night, almost as if he were bragging about a skill he possessed.

He had said the end of the stalk came they found us alone in a nearly deserted park that evening.

Before I died, he wanted me to know for some reason the attack hadn't been random, and it seemed to be of great satisfaction to him to let me know all the details of his 'stalk'… including mentioning all the times and places he'd followed Stephanie, and the times he had seen both of us together.

He told me that nothing had amused him more than seeing my fiancée wearing my mother's engagement ring, because he knew that her time was limited, that she had no future.

It might have been god's will, pure luck, or just the simple fact he was too over confident and too cocky.

He leaned in too closely to me, perhaps to better feel my helpless rage. I don't know when exactly I noticed it, but right before me, tucked into his belt was the bone handle of a large Bowie knife just inches from my reach.

To this very day, I'm not exactly sure how I got my hands on it. I was in a blind rage, and the next thing I knew the heavy knife was in my hands and I made a wild swing at the beast's neck.

I thought to myself that there was no way my weak arms could catch the monster unaware. I'd only hope to make one last showing of defiance, to anger the bastard enough that he'd stop taunting me and just kill me out right. Hoping he send me on to where my Stephanie had already gone… and to where I was sure she was waiting for me

Instead, I felt a hard jar, as the blade cut most of the way through the vampire's neck. He must have been surprised, as his eyes grew very wide and his hands went up to cover the gapping slit in his throat. Blood gashed out, and I found myself thinking that it all had to be Stephanie's blood spilling on the ground… and that very thought fueled the fury inside me!

The vampire gurgled and then sat down hard right in front of me.

I recalled screaming as loud as I could – until I was sure that my throat was bleeding from the strain, and swinging the big knife again, this time using both hands on the handle. The blade hit again and this time, the vampire's head flew off his neck.

The next thing I remembered was having crawled my way on top of the still moving body, where I hacked away at it like a enraged madman until I couldn't raise the Bowie another time. My rage was such, that I never felt the shattered pieces of my ribs tearing up my insides.

When it was over, the vampire's body lay in several pieces around me as well. Had I a clue then to the importance to what had just occurred, I might have made an effort to retain the Bowie, because it held a secret I would spend years searching for. However, I had more pressing issues, and I immediately lost track of the weapon as soon as my task was accomplished.

Every heavy breath I took at that moment brought more of my own blood up from my shredded lungs.

I was going to get my wish… I was dying.

I recall looking over at the remains of my sweet Stephanie, and knowing that the other two undead monsters had escaped retribution. The wrath I felt grew and burnt bright despite my waning life, and it would never be satisfied until the other two responsible for talking her away from me were dead as well.

That wild fire would never go out until every single one of the unclean beasts were dead… dead as a race!

The book about Dracula said that drinking the blood of a vampire could transform a dying mortal into a vampire. I couldn't fight them as I was, sick and now dying, but I could as one of them! Surely my righteous fury would keep me from becoming like them I had thought crazily.

So I did the unthinkable… I drink the blood of my first vampire victim.

It was vile, putrid, and I nearly vomited from my first mouthful, and had my rage not still been so intense I might have given up right then. I swallowed that first draught of blood, forcing it down, never taking my eyes from my fiancée's body to further steel my will. When I accomplished that, I drank even more. I kept going until my throat was raw and I was sure that I had poisoned myself because of the way my stomach had started to roll and burn. I kept feeding myself until I could not longer get anything from the stump of the monster's neck.

Within a few minutes of stopping… I was in hell. Literally.

I was a burning man, and I remember screaming to the heavens… cursing fate, cursing god, and most of all, cursing the vampires.

I don't know how I came to be there, but I woke up three days later in a halfway house, surrounded by bums and merchant sailors who were down on their luck or waiting a call to ship out. I woke up in mid morning surprised to be alive, and was disappointed when the sun didn't burn me.

I could still see myself in the lone mirror in the communal bathroom, posted over the sink just like the one I had been looking into a short while ago, ninety-five years later.

My heart still beat, I still drew in a breath every few seconds like clockwork, and the crosses hanging on just about every wall in the house had absolutely no ill effect on me at all.

My first day as a vampire was a total bust. My bid to become immortal had failed, and with it, any hope of revenge. So depressed was I, that I failed to wonder at how I could be still on this side of the grave in the first place, nor did I seem to notice that my ribs no longer pained me at all!

It would be a few days before I'd learn differently… and began to start figuring out what the new rules of my life were.

There was a major war starting at that time, if you recall, so no one at the halfway house paid very much attention to me. Men were constantly coming and going as the country geared up to fight in a conflict that would involve nearly the entire world.

I had no clue as to how I got to the halfway house to began with, but I'd immediately found somebody had gone through my pockets and even taken my shoes. I had no ID or money at all. It was as if I was being born anew with nothing at all to tie me to my old life. I never even went back to my old home again; as I felt the memories it held would have been too much to bear.

The first real clue I had that something had changed was the normal pain in my chest from the disease – it was gone!

Suspicious and hoping beyond reasonable logic, I had myself examined by a visiting physician when I had the chance. I had not mentioned the illness I had been previously suffering from to the doctor at all, but he confirmed it for me after a brief examination. Except for a slow heartbeat and slightly low body temperature, I was as healthily as a horse… my disease was in fact, entirely gone!

The doctor suggested seeing I was so fit, I might want to enlist and help the war effort. I remember smiling and telling him a war was exactly what I had in mind.

The newspapers had carried reports of Stephanie's murder… though the authorities classified it as an animal attack of some kind. Of me, they only reported that I had been missing as well, but given the evidence found at the scene that I was presumed dead.

My prior unhealthy circumstance was no secret to anyone who knew me, and a trail of blood that led from the scene eventually came to a dead end when the investigators followed it. The current thought was that in my wounded condition, and weakened from my cancer, that I might have crawled off somewhere in the park and died as a result of the attack. They were still searching for my body even then.

When pressed for an explanation by the public, the local authorities speculated that a pack of wolves or wild dogs had found the shoreline of Lake Erie into the park and had attacked there.

At the time I found it odd there was no mention of a second dismembered body being found at the scene, as I was reasonably certain I had left the vampire I'd killed there.

It was sometime later that I would learn the proper way to dispose of a vamp's body with fire, and it would be some years later when I crossed paths with that Tracker again. and gleefully killed him the right way.

I can tell you by that time I had honed my technique somewhat more, and that Tracker vamp had wished he'd died that first time when I was through with him the second.

I started my campaign of vengeance within two weeks of waking in the halfway house, and spent the next forty-five years killing every vampire I ran across.

It was only a decade or so until my body count started to be noticed, and could no longer be kept secret from the Volturi and gradually drew their attention. In later years they would send a few agents to try and take care of me. Apparently they were very incensed that a mere _human_ not only knew of their existence, but that same mere _human_ also had the audacity to kill a great many immortals.

I added a bunch of Volturi minions to my tally too for their troubles.

That made me really popular with the Italians as time passed.

And then things got really hot at home.

Eventually in the late 1950's, the Italian bloodsuckers assigned a group of non-conformists to take me down, obviously as some form of punishment to them for bucking the old guard's system, as this trio of vamps hadn't been the usual grade of specialized killers they normally sent after me.

I guess the ruling vamps don't like people who upset the status quo and make waves either. Looking back at it, I suppose I should have been offended that they considered using me to do their dirty work. But at the time I wasn't too picky about the vampires I eradicated to think of it. A vamp was a vamp as far as I was concerned, and I didn't mind too much killing them.

And I'll be damned if one of those nonconformists vampires didn't track me down and then just walk right up and offer his life to me with no resistance at all… if only I would listen to what he had to say first.

I'm not going to go into how they found me right now because it seemed to be nothing more than a fluke of a number of random events working together, and not any real tracking skills on their parts.

But this bizarre vamp said he would gladly let me kill him after he was done speaking, if that was still my desire.

I had to admit; I thought the undead bastard was as crazy as a hatter. However by then, I had been growing tired of all the nonstop killing, and I thought why not do something a little bit different this time and listen to him rant first… and then kill him.

It seemed no matter how many I found and killed, there always seemed to be more vampires to take their place anyway. So it was pretty much out of curiosity and the weirdness of it all that I let him have his say.

Honest, I really did plan on killing him in the end, no matter what he said.

Best laid plans of mice and half-breed vampires, right? Or maybe it was a Murphy's Law for Bloodsuckers that was in effect.

No one was more surprised that these three vampires walked away in the end than I was.

The vampire who first approached me, the one that seemed to be in charge, first needlessly explained to me that there were different vampire covens… a fact that I was already aware of, and stated that I was.

What he told me next was something I hadn't known, that there were some covens that wanted nothing more than to live in peace with mankind, and who hunted animals instead of humans for what they needed.

I was informed that the trio of vampires facing me now were representatives of such peaceful covens.

I had in fact noticed that the eyes of some vampires were gold, while others were red, but never though much on the matter and made no effort to find out what the difference meant. To me as I said, a vampire was a vampire… period.

It was at that first meeting that he informed me what the eyes meant. Later when I had time. I looked back over the years, and I suddenly realized that the golden-eyed vampires had always seemed more willing to run from conflict with me instead of fight if they were able.

That they also tended to live in more stable environments rather than roam over wide areas like the red-eyes seem to. The gold-eyes had even lived in groups more like human families, and at the time I remember thinking they did so to better blend in with their human prey, and feeling that it was a mockery of what was taken from me whenever I ran across them. The sight of such things made me loathe them even more. The killings of these vampire _families_ were among some of the most vicious attacks I'd ever performed.

At first I didn't want to believe what they were telling me, that the golden-eyed vampires were in ways vastly more civilized than their transient red-eyed cousins. Eventually despite my resistance to the idea, not even I could deny it. The evidence had been there right in front of me all along.

The vampires that had killed Stephanie had red eyes, that detail I would never forget for as long as I lived because I saw those eyes every time I dreamed. I should have noticed when I looked them in the eyes just before I killed them, not all the vamps were the same.

In my hatred, in my quest for vengeance, I had never let myself see those little but strangely important differences in my enemies.

It never occurred to me that vampires could endeavor to lead a decent and moral life if they chose. They didn't all have to be monsters.

And in fighting monsters, perhaps I'd become an even bigger monster?

I asked their leader why he was bothering to tell all this to me? Why not just try and kill me in justice for all that I had done against the peaceful members of their kind?

And he told me that they had learned pieces of what led to my vendetta, and that they understood why I relentlessly pursued it. Unlike red-eyed vamps that mostly stick together in very small groups for the purpose of hunting and survival, they stay with their covens for a sense of community and love for each other. And indeed, I had been observing these three, and they did seem to have an odd relationship of mutual respect and support that I had never seen or noted in human hunting vampires.

They themselves said didn't blame me… because they would have done the very same thing in my place if one of their family members had been harmed or killed.

They also asked of me, that I had to understand on the same account, that they all had lost friends and family through my actions… but that they were willing to settle this in a civilized manner if it would stop the killing. The tall blonde vampire had explained that they were trying to change their society for the better, that it would be a slow change for certain led by example, but that they all believed it could be done eventually.

And in order to do that, they had to be the first to lead by that example, and that killing me would serve no purpose other than to reinforce the old ways that the Volturi wished to maintain.

He concluded that speech with the fact that I could kill all three of them now, if I still desired, but with them would die the effort and the hope… and any possible future where man and vampire could co-exist.

He also said that in every war, there must come a time for both sides to set aside their causes and make peace, to put down their weapons, find a balance they both could live with, to let the old wounds finally heal, and to go back to living again.

The damned crazy bastard was right.

At that first meeting, I hate to admit I was still far from believing what they said. But this vampire who was willing to die if something could be done to end over forty years of killing intrigued me.

We meet several more times on neutral ground, and even the other two vampires with the tall light-haired one told me their stories, of the wrongs I've done to them, and their willingness to make peace. They didn't look as positive about it as their leader, but they both also offered me their lives if I wanted them.

I had not originally meant to disclose more about myself to them, but somewhere along the line I found myself telling them my story in full, perhaps it was only to somewhat justify my actions to them after they had told me the grief I had personally brought to them with my war. Perhaps it was I wished somewhere inside for them to know that I had not asked for this.

The trio listened with a patient ear, and then said they now found an even deeper understanding in my own reasons for my hatred of their kind, and expressed genuine sorrow for my loss.

I had never thought that any vampire, let alone three of them, would see my pain, let alone acknowledge it… and grieve with me for what I had lost.

And so I entered into a covert pact with these three… persons of honor, I guess I would have to call them.

I agreed to end my war, to stop hunting vampires; in return, they would aid me in disappearing and fake my death to the Volturi.

To me, they gave their pledge that neither they nor anyone in their covens would ever take a human life, except in self-defense, and that they would do their best to covert other vampires and covens to their way of life.

They allowed me the same provision, to only kill another vampire in self-defense, or defense of another innocent. They knew they couldn't promise anything for the vamps that still hunted humans, but they said they could almost assure me that I would never have a problem with a vampire who had gold eyes.

I only had to actively stop hunting all vampires, and I could walk away… most likely for good. I would get to start a new life, and they could go to the Volturi claiming success with their task. My reported demise would require some props and faked evidence to support it, but it would also buy them a well-earned respite from Volturi interference while they set up they're human friendly communities.

Their leader assured me that the Volturi would have to give the coven leaders who brought down the infamous _Lucifer_, room to grow and direct their covens as they saw fit, or face harsh questions from the other vampires they governed.

The Volturi were powerful, but they still must maintain a balance with the subjects they ruled.

I did walk away from that war torn existence, and into a new quieter life… and with this book written by what I supposed was the closest thing to a vampire doctor.

Fifty years later, in a single level home in the Seattle suburbs, I was hoping that somewhere in these old pages there might be the answer to what was amiss with my unexpected houseguest.

Even if I had refused to add my own unique condition to his growing store of vampire knowledge, I hoped that the vampire who had been calling himself Eleazar at the time, had in addition to describing the perplexing malady that effected my guest, also left me with some solutions in his book on how to cure whatever was wrong with her.

It was a very slim chance that I might find anything, but probably the best one I had at the moment.

I sat down by my computer and began to read through the manuscript. Should I find a promising clue or something useful in the neatly typed pages, I was hoping that some of the more occult websites I had found since the invention of the Internet might add some modern information to the compilation.


	6. Chapter 5: You're my favorite mistake

Chapter Five: You're my favorite mistake…

The night passed without me much noticing it. I could go four or five days if I had to without sleep, though I'd finally pay for it eventually, and have to sleep for as much as a day or more instead of the normal three hours.

I stopped reading the large manuscript, only because my eyes felt fuzzy from going back and forth between the pages of type and the computer screen for the last few hours.

I'd made a little progress as it turned out, and some of it a bit optimistic at least. It seemed there were at least six documented cases in Eleazar's research where massive head trauma had cause vampires to become unconscious. The ultimate results of such an injury were split down the middle however. Three of the cases survived, the other three never regained their faculties and were left little more than blood craving animals. Those three unfortunates had to be destroyed by their caregivers in the end.

The other three successful cases reported that periods of unconsciousness were common. Eleazar likened the condition to the brain needing to shut down so that it could properly rewire itself. Conversely, at least one of the survivors never recovered his original personality.

He had been left a totally different person after his recovery.

Eleazar did document in great detail the treatment they gave the other two survivors, one a human hunting vamp, the other a golden-eyed non-hunter. Both had required human blood as part of the regiment, as nothing else would suffice due to a vampire's base nature. Animal blood my sustain a vamp, but only human blood could start the healing process it appeared.

This factor originally presented a problem for me. I read the log further and discovered that the coven of the gold-eyed vamp at first refused to allow the treatment because it required the human component, and they feared the patient would again be 'addicted' to human blood as a side result. However, eventually a compromised was reached where they attempted to give the non-hunter a mixture of animal blood mixed partly with donated human blood at a ratio of 9 to 1, to temper the addictive properties of the human product.

The non-hunter eventually made a full recovery without much in the way of withdrawal symptoms afterwards, but it had taken at least twice as long as the vampire who had received nothing but whole human blood.

There was no way I could give that girl a treatment using full human blood. I would never be able to control her. So it was going to have to be the long route or nothing, and even if I could pull it off and secure what I needed, I still might have a problem with her at only ten-percent human blood. The caregivers in the text were full vampires and undoubtedly could handle an ailing kindred with ease. I would be on my own, and was _still_ half human on top of that.

I thought I might have the animal blood covered if some of my old contacts were still available. The human blood was going to take some doing… and probably several illegal acts on my part.

Even if I went the safe route and bled myself dry, I myself still wouldn't have the amount to donate that she was going to need over what might be several weeks of recuperation.

I also didn't know if my half-bred nature would be a problem with me being the only source for the human part of the treatment anyway.

I was looking up the addresses I needed to start collecting the items for my mad medical experiment, when the hairs on the back of my neck stood up on end, informing me I was no longer alone in my living room.

I spun around, fighting the instinctual urge to go into a fighting crouch because I could smell her now.

Posed just outside the doorway to the guest bedroom was the vamp girl, the sight of her immediately made my fangs ache, which I took to be a sign that subconsciously I felt threatened. I made sure to compose my features into a blank emotionless wall; least I trip her aggressive response in return.

Vampires were not known for taking any form of challenge or threat lightly!

The girl was dressed in one of my discarded band t-shirts, and in her right hand she loosely held the long Banshee bush knife.

It was bad enough that she'd pretty much caught me completely off guard, and I had not heard her rummaging in the room looking for clothing, but I silently cursed myself for leaving the heavy blade stuck in the floorboards of the room with her.

That just might prove to be my one last dumb mistake if the girl was feeling antsy.

Her hair was still an unruly mess, mostly from my haphazard attempt at cleaning it last night. She moved away from the doorframe on shaky legs, her tiny bare feet not making a sound on floorboards that I knew for a fact were creaky, even despite her unsteady gait.

She must had read my discomfort as soon as she entered the room, despite my attempts to hide it, because halfway across the floor she held the Banshee up to me like an offering. The handle she pinched between her thumb and forefinger, with the blade dangling droopily toward the floor.

"This must be yours," she said in a slightly horse voice. "I nearly killed myself tripping over it."

I highly doubted that. Had the vampire done anything so clumsy as tripping I would have heard that for sure.

"Sorry," I offered instead of what I was actually thinking, as I cautiously took the tendered blade from her and thankfully placed it on the table to the side of me… well within my reach.

She seemed like she'd had enough of the undertaking of walking for the moment, and pretty much just dropped herself into the chair across from me.

She brushed her wild bangs from her golden eyes as she regarded me silently for a moment.

I relaxed, now that it seemed she wasn't presenting any danger to me for the time being, and waited patiently to see what would happen next.

She folded both slim hands and placed them in her lap, pushing the hem of my shirt downward to better cover herself. I did my best to do the gentlemanly thing and not gawk at her pale shapely legs. I found the task harder than I expected, as I was somewhat out of practice with such old fashion social manners in these modern times.

"I don't know what to ask first," she finally said, her tone a little stronger and clearer. "I remember some of last night… here, but much its blurry."

"How are you… feeling?" I inquired, just to get things rolling.

"Strange," she said, glancing briefly down at her hands. "Did what I think happen last night… happen?"

I cocked my head, wondering if it would be better to blurt it out what I assumed she wanted to know, or to let her ask her questions and give her time to adjust to each answer slowly.

"What exactly do you think happened?" I countered.

"Did I…" she started, and then raised both clasped hands to point both forefingers concisely at the bandage still around my left wrist. "Did I… _drink your blood_?"

I paused a moment before answering. There wasn't any way to sugar coat this one, so I didn't try.

"Yes, you did," I simply told her, as a matter of fact. I attempted to relay the answer flatly, as if it were no big deal, hoping she wouldn't panic or anything equally as bad as that.

She became very quiet and shivered a bit, looking so much like a lost little girl in my oversized t-shirt.

"Why?' she asked in a small whisper.

"Because you needed to."

She cut her eyes back up to me. "But that's… not normal," she said.

I shook my head.

"For you, it is," I explained. "Don't be frightened… but you are not like normal people. You have other needs. Drinking blood is one of them and is the norm for you."

"What am I?" she asked me, with a slight hint of trepidation.

I leaned in toward the girl, resting my forearms casually on my knees while trying to set a relaxed atmosphere… even though I still expected her to lunge at my throat at any second.

"What do you think you are?" I probed gently, thinking it might be easier if I let her come to as many of her own conclusions as I could.

"I don't know," she told me. "I… I don't like… what I'm thinking… because it sounds crazy."

"Then this is probably going to be hard for you to believe, but you're going to have to find a way to believe it," I started, "You're a… _vampire_. Do you understand what a vampire is?"

The girl looked at me like I might be crazy for a moment, but then unenthusiastically nodded her head.

"Yeah… I remember what a vampire is," she finally admitted. The look on her face plainly said that's what she had been thinking.

"Do you remember your name then?" I tossed out.

She paused a minute, and the shook her head. That bit of information was still hidden from her.

"A vampire? Are you sure?" she asked next. "That sounds so…" she faltered, as if searching for a word.

"Unbelievable?" I offered.

"No… silly," she corrected, with a sincere look.

I almost laughed at the chance of emotions on her face, but luckily was able to control the urge. The last thing the poor kid needed was to think I was making fun of her.

She just then might forget we were playing nice for the moment, then try and rip my head off in that case.

However, she must have taken my slight short period of silence as a confirmation of what I had told her.

"So… its true then?" she asked, leaning slightly forward in her chair. "That's what I am?"

"Yes, it is."

She got a blank look on her face for a second, as if she were inwardly thinking the facts over, attempting to find a way to accept them. Then she collapsed back into the arms of the recliner she was sitting in the process of reflection had suddenly drained most of the energy out of her.

"Wow," she breathed out lightly after the pause she had taken.

She then looked back at me for a moment, as if studying me and wondering how I all fit into her new situation.

"And you're not afraid of me?" was her next question.

"A little bit," I admitted with no shame. I'd dealt with vamps for far too long not to have a healthy respect and fear for what they are capable of. Beside, I had no doubt that her heightened senses where already telling her of my uneasiness in her presence.

"I don't want to hurt anyone," she announced next, which pleased me very much to hear.

"I'm very glad to hear you say that," I informed her.

She scrutinized me for about a minute while she digested all the information she'd just taken in. The small bits I had just told her had to be overwhelming to someone in her condition.

"Can I ask, how do you know all these thing… about vampires, I mean?"

That certainly was a question I didn't want to explore too deeply right at the moment.

"I try to keep an open mind, and I've read a lot of occult books to start with," I explained – which was in fact true. In my past line of work you had to do your research. "And I've seen a lot of strange things in my life. You wouldn't believe the amount of things that most people think are pure myth have their basis in some real truth. And after seeing that guy who attacked you, believing in vampires wouldn't be a far stretch for anyone."

At the mention of her assailant, the girl visibly shivered. I could imagine that those strange periods of unnatural 'sleep' she was having came with the usual standard dreams and nightmares also.

"What happen to the person… who attacked me?"

That took me way off guard; I hadn't expected that question to pop up… so I improvised by the seat of my pants.

"The two of you fought," I said. "You must have been a tougher opponent than he thought you would be. He just suddenly broke free and ran away… limping," I added. She seemed to buy my story, biting at her thumbnail as she thought for a few minutes more on I what I'd said.

We sat in silence for a few minutes longer before she next asked, "Why are you doing this? You're normal, right? Why are you helping me?"

I shrugged this time. I still didn't really have a clear answer on that myself. This girl could certainly undo everything I've gotten for myself in the last few decades if she learned the wrong things about me.

"You asked me to," was all I was able to tell her. "You were pretty hurt… and I couldn't just leave you there."

"I don't remember any of that," she said. "What did you say your name was last night? Cage?"

"Kage," I corrected her accent.

She tilted her head at me, and twisted her pretty lips up tightly. "Is that your real name?" she asked in clear doubt.

I smiled weakly, and lamely shrugged once more.

"It's as good as any," I supplied.

A small smile then graced her features with my reply, and suddenly she was stunningly beautiful. My heart skipped one of its slow beats, and I could tell she heard it by the way her smile grew a tiny bit more. I did my best to keep in mind that's what vampires did. They couldn't help but use their unearthly appearance to lure… but in my current situation, I think my reaction might have had more to do with a pretty face than vampire charms.

"All right, have it your way. But you're a strange man," she finally told me. Her smile turned into an easy one to let me know she meant no harm in that comment.

"I've been called far worse," I told her with a small shrug, to let her know I wasn't offended in the slightest.

She studied me closely a moment more, the slowly leaned back in toward me again as if she were concerned that any sudden moves on her part would spook me… and they would have. She raised one of her hands and I indeed started to automatically pull away as she reached for my face.

"Please?" she said softly. " You helped me, I don't want to harm you."

Against better judgment, I held still while she reached again and her cool fingertips lightly traced my cheek.

"I think… I've seen you before," she murmured mysteriously.

"Probably last night at the club," I stumbled out. "I'm a musician. You were there last night, dancing while my band played."

She smiled again lightly, and shook her head.

"No… I've seen you somewhere else, in a dream maybe? It's not all that clear when I try to focus on it." She reached down and fingered the hair that draped down my shoulder. After I had fed her, I had taken it out of the customary ponytail to get more comfortable while I settle in to read. "I think I've seen you like this," she continued lifting the lock she held, "And with shorter hair too."

I looked at her with open doubt.

"Yeah, I know. I can't remember who I am, but I know what vampires are, and for some reason I'm sure I can remember seeing your face. I almost think it was while I was sleeping, maybe, because the views were all disjointed. I remember that much."

That odd comment somewhat startled me. Since I left my old life, I've taken measures to do as much as I was able to alter my appearance from what I use to look like. I've had this round of longer hair now for at least the last ten years. My hair had always been pass shoulder length while I've been with the band, so I doubted the vamp girl could have seen me at a time when it was shorter.

Because if she ever had laid eyes upon me prior to the last half century, one of us would have been truly dead long ago.

For some reason, that thought suddenly distressed me more than it normally would have.

"I think you're imagining things, or confusing me with someone else," I went on and told her gently. "At any rate, I think I would have remembered meeting someone like you before. I think you're right… you must have been dreaming, and you did take a seriously hard knock to the head last night."

She just smiled with that same secret smile she had last night, while I was on stage and she was dancing below me. As if she knew something that the rest of the world didn't and delighted in it.

She withdrew her hand and leaned back in the recliner chair as if the last few minutes had exhausted her once more.

"Maybe," she agreed. "So what do we do now?" she wanted to know next.

"Perhaps we should try and figure out your name?" I offered.

She twisted her lips into a pretty frown. "I'm trying, but I just can't remember anything. It's like its there… but dances just out of my reach every time I try and think about it."

I suddenly remembered the brooch she had been wearing on her lapel of her original clothing, which now lay in a tattered heap somewhere on the bedroom floor. I imagine she wasn't too pleased when she discovered what condition it was in… if she even remembered the outfit was hers to began with, thus the need for her to search the room until she ran across one of my old shirts to don.

"Wait a minute," I said as I rose from my seat. She watched me with open curiosity as I disappeared into the guest room. A quick search and I found the item I wanted on top of the dresser where I had absently left it, and I was back with the pin in my hand.

"You were wearing this when I brought you in," I told her. "You had nothing else except a large roll of money on you."

She took the pin from me and examined it, turning it over and over in her hands for a few minutes.

"The letter 'A'," she finally muttered.

"I would assume it's the letter of your first name. Does that remind you of anything?" I probed.

She looked at the gold brooch for a few more minutes as if it might suddenly speak up and tell her it's secret, and then she finally shook her head looking very disappointed.

"Not a thing," she said.

"Well," I stared a moment later. "Its someplace to began at least. Maybe if we recite a list of female names starting with the letter 'A', something will click for you," I suggested. I paused a moment, and then for some reason feeling a little bit like an imp, I added, "You are female, aren't you? It's hard to tell with vampires."

The girl gazed at me with some confusion for a few seconds, and then her pretty lips drew into a tight rosebud as she realized I was teasing her. She tisked at me, and then lobbed a throw pillow in my direction.

"You _know_ certainly well I am," she scolded, and the dark circles under her eyes drew slightly darker. It took me a few seconds to realize she was blushing! "Otherwise I wouldn't have had to dig something to wear up!" she continued, while indicating that she had to scrounge her current garb from old clothing I'd left stored in the spare bedroom. I had to admit, the clothing she had been wearing was pretty much a bloody mass of rags in the bedroom's corner, and I doubted any of it could be saved.

"I hadn't time to notice last night," I chuckled as I caught the pillow missile. She shook her head and then grinned a little bit at me, the mood in the living room lightened up again considerably.

"Shall we make a list then?" I asked again, getting back to business and trying to resist her smile.

She was game to try, and for the next half hour we went through every feminine name I could think of that began with 'A'. I wrote each one down on a pad to keep track, but none of them rang a bell with the girl, and regrettably she was getting slightly depressed once more with each continuing failure.

Finally, I called an end to it for the time being.

"Okay, we have to call you something," I said, "I can't just keep saying, 'Hey you', every time I want to get your attention. Let's just pick one of the A-names that you like, and use that until we can figure out what your real one is."

"I suppose we should," the vamp said, bravely trying to hide her distress and frustration.

"Abby? Adeline?" I tried first, going as alphabetically as I could in my head and off the list we made.

She shook her head at just about every one.

"Amber?" I eventually said.

This time she twisted her lips in disgust, 'Amber' was definitely right out of it. It would be a sick twist of fate if her name were actually Amber, I thought silently to myself.

I went through all the normal names I could think of again, and some unusual ones that I could think of after that, the vampire girl turned her nose up at each and every one of them.

Finally in near desperation, I started on other A-nouns just to find something, anything, she liked.

"Angel?" I tried off the top of my head, probably targeting in on that one because of that stupid TV show. She blinked as soon as I said it, and I paused as the peculiarity struck me. She did indeed have the face of an Angel. I liked it immediately despite its source, but would the finicky vampire?

I cocked my head as I waited for her verdict.

"A vampire named, 'Angel'?" she asked.

"I know… it's from a corny TV series about vampires. But you're cuter than he was at least."

"Was it?" she blinked in confusion.

"Yeah… you know, a spin-off of 'Buffy'."

"Who?"

"Buffy the Vampire Slayer," I explained.

She shook her head. "I don't think I've ever heard of it," she said, giving me a distasteful look, seeing the topic of the show might have struck a little too close to home for her.

"Anyway… I personally think it fits you," I said, "Until we learn you're real name at least."

She nodded slowly. "Yeah, I kind of like it. Despite it belonging to somebody who killed vampires on a TV show."

"No," I corrected. "Angel was a male vampire on the series who ended up with his own show."

"Oh!" she exclaimed with a hint of pleased surprise. "That's somewhat better then."

I smiled at her. If she was this pleasant in her true personality, you couldn't help but like her.

Even if she was a vamp.

"So, Angel it is then," I announced.

She smiled back attentively. "I guess so."

Her sweet face became serious a moment later.

"I'm really sorry for this," she said suddenly. "You're very kind to be doing all this for me. And I should have said a proper 'thank you' long before now. So I sincerely thank you for helping me."

"Its alright," I told her. "I think helping turned out to be the right choice last night."

And for the most part, I had come to believe that… for the most part.

"Still…" she said while turning her eyes downward to glance at the floor. "I feel bad for taking advantage of you. Especially now… because I have to ask…"

She let the comment drop off as if she were too embarrassed to go on.

"Ask what?" I inquired with growing curiosity.

"I'm… I'm getting thirsty again," she finally admitted. "That's what woke me up."

I was somewhat surprised to hear that. The girl had controlled herself very well during our entire conversation, never giving me any hint of her pressing need.

"Look up at me. Let me see your eyes closer," I demanded.

She leaned forward and looked up at me without giving me any trouble, and I saw that a thin growing band of black surrounded her golden eyes. It was growing slowly, and I had aberrantly missed it when she first came into the room.

"I really don't want to ask…"

"I know," I said; cutting her off, suddenly feeling a little bit of the edge come back between us. "It can't be helped at the moment. I think I learned some things that will help us after tonight.

"That's good," she told me. "I can't tell you how sorry I am that I have to ask this of you. I did mean what I said about not wanting to hurt you… or anybody else."

"It'll be fine, Angel" I assure her, silently hoping to myself that I was right on that account. She was still weak, but nowhere as helpless as she was last night. She could be a real problem in the blink of an eye once she latched onto me.

"So… how do you want to do this?" she asked me. Both desire and distressed warred within her voice and eyes at the same time.

I sighed. Into the fire one more time, I thought.

"Let's just sit on the floor, it'll be easier and more comfortable for both of us," I suggested.

"Okay," she agreed, and we both moved to the space of floor between our chairs. I unwound the bandage from my left wrist, careful to hide the light pink scar from her. I didn't want to field her asking me any questions about how I healed virtually over night.

"Do you remember last night?" I asked. "Whatever you do, do not use your teeth."

"Don't bite, I remember that part," she agreed.

"Good," I confirmed, then padded the space between my legs. "Come sit here. It will be easier this way." She nodded and then scooted up between my legs, placing her back to me. I didn't want to tell her that in this position it would be also easier for me to break her neck if she went feral on me. If she knew of the vulnerable position that I had placed her in, she gave no sign of it.

Just wanting to get this over with, I reached up and grabbed the Banshee again from the table. Holding my wrist up over her head and out of her sight, I made a small cut along the prior scar. This time it didn't sting so badly, but I felt just as foolish as when I did this the first time, tempting a lioness like I was.

I started to place the Banshee back on the table, but was suddenly surprised to feel her small hand lock around my wrist to stop me.

I froze as I immediately suspected betrayal on her part.

Instead she said, "Hold on to it… just in case I can't stop," she ordered.

I glanced down at the side of her face, to see her eyes had turned completely black now. She was staring hard at the floor, as if fighting to keep focused on keeping her sanity. "I don't want to hurt you," she finished.

It was all in or all out now. Put your faith in the girl I now called Angel, or kill her, I told myself.

Against all logical reason, I chose faith.

"You won't," I told her, as I broke her grip with ease – mostly because she let me – and placed the Banshee out of the way on the table again.

I brought my bleed wrist down in front of her, and her eyes tracked it. She hissed lightly under her breath, but she made no direct move toward it.

"Go ahead," I said, wondering if she was actually waiting for permission.

At my words, she finally reached for my arm, taking it in a surprisingly gentle hold. She started to slowly bring it to her lips, but then paused.

She abruptly looked back up at me.

"I promise," she said with a heavy voice, "That I will make this up to you. I swear to that."

"That will be fine… someday," I agreed. Now in awe that she still had this much self-control.

She nodded, and then brought my wrist to her mouth and began to feed.

She was very gentle, even more so then last night when she had been so weak. I caught her stealing glances at me every now and then, as if to see if I was all right with what she was doing. I found myself stroking her hair to let her know that I was fine and not in any distress.

It was a strange scene, if I say so myself.

She drew gently on me for almost two minutes this time, and just before I was going to tell her that was enough, she stopped of her own free will.

She had been much neater tonight, and there wasn't a drop of blood on her face or mouth.

Oddly, she sort of just collapsed against me afterwards.

"Thank you, thank you so very much," she murmured. She looked back up at me, and her eyes were a brighter gold than I have ever seen them, including the night before at the club, just before the attack that stole her memory.

She smiled, and it looked sort of blissful. I blinked in surprise; human's sometimes looked that way when they were drunk!

"I feel… very tired now," she almost slurred.

She smiled pleasantly one last time, and her head drifted down to my chest.

And she was out again, not even so much as simulating breathing.

I pressed the old bandage against the wound in my wrist for a few moments to halt the bleeding, while I digested the new events of the night. Angel was like a dead weight against my chest, though a pleasant dead weight. She actually smelled pretty wonderful I noticed. My eyeteeth ached slightly, but not as bad as before, so I guess I was becoming more at ease around the girl now.

I ignore the strange feeling in my jaw and brought my thoughts more into line, to focus on the business at hand. If Angel held true to course as laid out in the vampire manuscript, she should be in that healing state for several more hours. And when she awoke again, she was going to be even thirstier yet.

That gave me a few hours to get what I needed together. She would be dead to the world for all purposes, so I would be able to leave the house for a short time to do what I needed to do.

I picked her up, and took her back to the guest bedroom, placing her back under the sheets.

I closed the door behind me, and then went to the kitchen to make up my new shopping list.


	7. Chapter 6: Highway to Hell

Chapter Six: Highway to Hell

I'm rolling thunder, pouring rain  
I'm coming on like a hurricane  
My lightning's flashing across the sky  
You're only young but you're gonna die

_** …Hell's Bells**_

Within an hour I left my place just within the limits of Beacon Hill and head further north until I hit Interstate Route 5, and then into Seattle again. Just about an hour later, I found the little shop I was looking for, on the west side of the city along Western Avenue.

It had been over twenty-five years since I'd last been there, and the place had certainly seen better days.

The sign in the door's dirty window said the place didn't open until 10am, and seeing it was just before 9am, I didn't feel like waiting over an hour.

Besides, the current owner wasn't actually all that interested in selling what the shop was originally intended to sell, so I wasn't all that concerned with being a good and proper customer.

I ducked down the littered alleyway on the building's eastside, and found the side entrance I remembered being there. The door was old, but the knob was shiny and new… and of course locked.

That didn't present much of a problem for me.

I just turned the doorknob until the cylinder pins in it's cheap lock caused it to stop, and then gradually added more pressure until I felt the inner workings of the knob shatter. The door was still held by a deadbolt, but a quick hard smack with the flat of my hand in the area of the lock tore the bolt from the doorframe with very little sound.

I loved being a half-vampire sometimes!

I pushed open the door and it creaked slightly on rusted hinges. I entered the long dark hallway that I could recall from older and better days. The passage way was now cluttered with old boxes and cases of empty beer bottles, along with some other items that I'd rather not think about.

And that's beside the stacks of what could only be stolen property that was waiting to be hawked at some pawnshop… or possibly sold out of the trunk of some car.

I shook my head in growing disgust while the tails of my leather duster kicked up dust as I moved down the hallway to what use to be the storefront's back room office.

My old friends would be turning in their graves if they saw what their descendants had done to their beloved family business.

Ahead of me, I could hear the sounds of a TV playing low, and occasionally someone murmuring in the background. Knowing what I did of the new owner, I was surprised anyone was even up at this hour of the morning. I didn't need to have a super-sensitive nose to smell the bodies in need of a shower coming from the room already, and believe me, this was one of those times I regretted having heightened senses. The stench of old marijuana gave that of the unwashed people a run for their money.

The door before me was opened just a crack, the dancing light of the TV flickered in the crease.

There wasn't much else to do but make an entrance at this point, so I pushed the door open.

"Knock, knock!" I said as these hinges also made a slight creak.

Before me watching a small color TV, and sitting in an old overstuffed chair that I barely recognized – because the last time I had seen it, it was almost brand new – was a slender young black man with dreadlocks that reached down passed his shoulders.

At the sound of my voice, he dropped the cigarette he had be holding in his lose fingers to the floor. My eyes tracked it for a second as it hit the ground, and I vaguely wondered if it would start a fire there in all the trash on the floor.

I stepped further into the room, and could now see an even bigger black man rousting himself from sleep on a torn-up couch in the corner of the litter filled room.

"Who da hell' ar' you, mon?" the slender guy said angrly, as he turned to face me.

"A preferred customer," I replied with a polite smile.

"To hell' ya say, Whit'bread. I never saw you before… and we're closed now, mon!" he continued in that irritating false Jamaican accent.

I smiled again in decreasing tolerance, and took several more steps toward him, while ignoring the big guy who was just now sitting up on the couch, looking from me to his friend and back again. Obviously waiting for his companion to tell him what he should do about me.

"I doubt you keep the regular store hours now, so I let myself in," I told him. "And you can knock off the fake Jamaican accent, Jerome. I know for a fact that while your grandfather and father were from the Caribbean, you've never left Seattle."

If he was shocked that I knew his name and that he was faking the inflection, he didn't show it much.

Instead, he got all defensive.

"It's Haitian, mon… and what the hell do you know?" he shouted. "Now get your pasty white ass outta here, before I have my homeboy beat you to death."

I shook my head. "Not until after we finish our business, Jerome," I said.

"Screw you!" he spat, and then turned to his lanky. "Take care of him, mon," he told his muscle.

Like a faithful pet unleashed, the big brute roared and charged me from the couch. I have to give him this, for a big guy he was pretty quick on his feet.

He reached for me with hands the size of Easter hams. I targeted the insides of each of his wrist with the outer edge of my hand, and a quick double slap later, I was sure I left both of his limbs completely numb from mid-forearm to finger tips.

I didn't give him much time to enjoy the new tingly feeling as I palmed his face with my other hand and threw him back toward the couch.

The big guy sailed through the air, hit the wall above the sofa hard, and then flopped down into the seat again. He looked pretty rattled at the moment, and I doubted he was going to be much more trouble.

At least, he wouldn't be any further trouble if he had a once of common sense.

I turned back to Jerome just in time to see his eyes pretty much bugging out of his skull, I was fairly sure he wasn't believing what he'd just seen. But that was why I'd done it.

"Now, where were we?" I asked pleasantly. Then I saw his eyes dart to a rusty old .38 special snub-nose pistol laying on the table by the chair he had been sitting in. "Oh please don't," I said as I read his intent.

He went for it anyway.

I'm not vampire fast, but fast enough. To Jerome I probably covered the short distance in the blink of an eye and prevented him from reaching the gun. I grabbed him by his wrist and applied just enough torque to the joint to make him stand up on his tiptoes. A very common martial arts hold with no half-vampire strength required to apply it for the desired results.

Jerome pretty much screamed like a girl at that. I let him yell for a moment, while I took the opportunity to step on the small fire his dropped cigarette had started on the floor after all.

After playing fireman, I picked up the gun Jerome had been foolishly reaching for with my free hand. I found it was an old Charter Arms Undercover .38. With practice eased, I thumbed the cylinder latch open and swung the five-shot cylinder out to dump the mismatched rounds onto the floor. I really didn't have a need for a gun, but I do like them. It stung me to see the poor shape this one was in.

"You need to take better care of your firearms, Jerome," I chastised him, as I set the now empty piece back on the cluttered table.

"Please! Please don't hurt me!" he plead, all trace of his accent gone now. "What do you want? Take anything you want, just don't hurt me, man!"

I hissed in disgust and dropped his wrist. Before he could recover I seized him by the throat and lifted him a few inches into the air.

"I'm not here to hurt you, Jerome… at least not yet," I nearly growled. "But you can avoid all that by being of assistance to me… and you _are_ going to help me."

He nodded his head in agreement as best he could manage, and then I gave him a break and slammed him down on the desk and pinned him there, only because knowing his nature, I'd felt that I truly hadn't made my point clear to him just yet.

Jerome wasn't what anyone would call an upstanding citizen. In fact, he was pretty much a low-level drug dealer and thief, and you know its normal for them to not have much in the way of honest business scruples.

"Whatever you want, man! Just tell me… who you are and what you want," Jerome promised.

"Ah! I'm glad to see we're communicating now," I told him, then paused a moment to look around the office I use to know so well. Within a few seconds I found what I was looking for.

I let go of his throat and flashed him a warning finger. "Stay there and don't move."

He swallowed hard and nodded, plainly too frightened to defy me for the moment.

I went to the wall, and reached up to remove the old photograph that was hanging there. Seeing it immediately brought back old memories.

I brought it back over to the desk and Jerome, having to wipe a thick layer of dust from the glass front as I did.

"This is who I am," I told him as I held up the photograph before his eyes.

"What?" he asked in bewilderment. "That's some old picture of my gramps and my dad when he was little. What's that suppose to tell me?"

Annoyed, I reached over and delivered a stinging slap to his forehead.

"Hey!" he exclaimed in mild pain, rubbing at his head.

"Look closer!" I demanded.

This time he did, and he actually studied the picture for a few minutes. Then something clicked inside his drug slowed mind and be began looking from the photo to me and back to the photo again.

"The white dude in the picture… its you!" he exclaimed. "But… that can't be possible! That photo has to be over 60-years-old!"

I smiled. I was finally getting somewhere.

"Oh, believe it, chuckles," I said to him.

I had first rolled through Seattle back in the late 1930's, when my war on vampires was still running at full bore. I had come here on specific business, to discover the town was a vampire hotspot even then. By then, I had as little in common with the human race as I did with vampires. It was something of a mystery how I came to notice a young black man and his family struggling to start a business in a time when minorities weren't very welcomed in most places, and black owned business were almost unheard of.

Add to those difficulties that organized crime was present and thriving even here, the law wasn't inclined to help a man of color who had problems with the mob, and the law tended to look away on those accounts.

Jerome's great-grandfather gave me some assistance with my purpose for coming to Seattle; in return I stepped in and had some words with the local mob boss. When our talked was ignored, I removed the problem – permanently.

In those days I could be cold and ruthless, and I had by then seen enough of the world to know that evil did come in other forms beside vampiric. What I had left behind me was so horrid that the police themselves covered the massacre up, and not a word leaked out about it to the public. Afterwards, the mob itself left certain types of business in the area alone… mostly for superstitious reasons I heard.

I admit, I also came out with something for this side work. I had been confiscating what valuable assets I could get my hands on during my war with vamps, after all, I had to live and fund my cause just like anyone else. The haul I made from eradicating a branch of organized crime still partially supports me in my quieter days, even after deducting what I left with Jerome's great-grandfather as a punitive repayment for what these same people did to him and his family.

Afterwards, for the next generation or two, Jerome's family had been stoic allies whenever I needed them, as I found myself increasing drawn back to the Seattle area time-and-time again in my everlasting quest for vengeance. They remained so, up until my faked death in the late 50's.

Jerome shook his head in denial at the evidence before him.

"This has to be some sort of trick," he cried.

I was getting more annoyed with this piss-ant by the moment, so I grinned and let him see my fangs grow.

"Do I look like I'm fooling?" I asked in a hiss.

"Holy shit! Holy God!" Jerome squeaked, and then tried to make himself part of the desk by attempting to push his back through it.

"I can assure you, god has nothing to do with me," I said, "You're family however… owes me some favors. Perhaps you recall your father and grandfather speaking about a man they called Archer, don't you?" I could only hope they had told this boy about me, even though his great-grandfather and grandfather both vowed that they would never let their family forget what I had done for them.

Surprisingly, Jerome nodded.

"Gramps and dad, use to tell stories about this guy who helped out Gramp's father during the prohibition days… and later helped my Gramps when he had some other trouble. He would never say what it was, but him and dad always told me that if a man called _Archer_ ever showed up and asked for help, I was suppose to give it to him without question. I always thought they were just stories, and that was all. And let me tell you… I'm having trouble believing this shit… even if I am seeing it with my own eyes!"

"Well, now you know different," I said, while letting him go. "Your grand-sires being who they were lived in a different world. They knew what I was, and had no problem believing in creatures like me. And now… I'm here to collect on that favor you owe," I added with a new smile, that I'm sure Jerome was grateful for because it didn't show my teeth.

"Okay… Okay," Jerome said, holding up both hands as he tried to sit up. I let him rise so we could better talk. "I don't care who you are! Just tell me what you want so I can get you the hell out of my crib, man. So what is it? Crack? Weed? Big 'H'? I can get Coke… or even some Ho's no one will miss if you want to do that Dracula thing."

That pissed me off.

"None of that," I growled, "And if I ever hear about you trafficking in human lives, Jerome… I'll kill you myself as another favor to your Grandfather. Do you understand?"

"Sure! Sure… no offense meant, Bro! I just know people who know people, know what I'm sayin'? I don't get into the streetwalkers myself."

"Good for you," I told him mordantly. "Now… what I want from you. Your great-grandfather and your grandfather were Houngans; they started this store to supply the other praticioners of Vodou religions in the area with the supplies and artifacts they needed."

"What? That? Bunch of crazy people, practing hocus pocus," Jerome muttered.

"And now you use it as a front to sell drugs and stolen property," I continued. "I personally don't care what you do as far as that goes. What I want to know is if you still have a reliable vendor for animal blood for blood rites?"

He blinked, startled at that, and then cracked a grin. I could see he was getting ready to make a wise crack about my canine teeth and my possible diet. I growled low in my throat to let him know that I really wouldn't have been amused if he said it. Lucky for him, he could take a hint and kept his mouth shut.

"Yeah, I still have a couple of sources on the books… for appearance purposes. And some of the crazies still come here looking for things, so we sell it to them if we got it," he informed me. "What kind of… blood do you want?"

"Cattle, perferably fresh as possible."

"I can get that with no problem. I have a connection down at a slaughter house for that stuff. How much you want?"

"I want two gallons to start with. But I want at least a gallon of it delieved every morning to an address I will give you. Remember it has to be no more than two hours old when its picked up, or it will be no good to me."

Jerome smiled. Making deals was something he was comfortable with.

"I can do that," he promised.

I wrote down my address on a slip of paper from his desk, and then handed it to him along with several hundred dollar bills.

"Hire someone clean to make the delivery. I don't want to see you or any of your people around the address I've given you. If I do, I'll kill them and then come for you and do the same. Are we clear on that?"

"Yeah, man… we're good," he said while counting the money I'd given him. "If you're there, you won't catch me within five miles of that place. Ah… no offense, man."

"None taken," I said with a cold smile. "Its absolutely inperative that the blood be fresh," I reminded him. "Don't screw with me on this, or I'll take what your family owes me out of your veins instead."

"Yeah, I kinda figured that was the deal with this _Dawn of the Dead_ shit, man," Jerome said.

I twisted my lips up in annoyance.

"That's Zombies," I corrected.

"Whatever… No problem on the shipping gig . With what you gave me here, I can get you what you want and someone to deliver it daily for the next six months."

"It should only be for several weeks. You can keep what you don't use."

He looked surprised at that.

"But I expect total discresion on this matter also," I added.

He made a locking and throwing away the key motion over his mouth.

"My lips are sealed, man. Who'd believe this freaking crap anyway? When you want the first of this stuff sent to you?"

"Today, as soon as possible. Tell them to leave it on the front porch by the door and then leave right away. They hang around – they die. Then you pay even worse than they do. Got that?"

"Yeah, I said I did, man. It'll be there like you want," Jerome promised.

I smiled, but with no humor again. "Then our business is concluded," I said.

I turned to walk out the same way I'd come in, but he stopped me with a question.

"Hey, man!" he called, and waited for me to face him again. "After all this time… why you back knockin' on my crib's door?"

"Circumstances require it, and that's all you need to know," I informed him. He held up both his hands to say he had no problem with my curt answer. "Any other questions?" I asked cooly.

"Just one… I know what… you're suppose to be," Jerome started. "I don't freaking half believe it, but hell, in this place, I've seen weirder characters than you walk in, so I should. But how the hell is it that you're walking around in the day time? Isn't that against the rules or something?"

Instead of being annoyed further, I chuckled.

"Don't believe everything you hear or see, Jerome. Just keep in mind that I can visit you anytime I get the urge and we'll get along fine."

"Right, man… okay," he agreed.

I almost turned to leave again, but paused a moment, remembering the last time I had stood in that office so long ago. And remembering the three generations of men that I had once thought of as the closest things I had to friends.

"Jerome," I said, and he looked at me with inquiring eyes. "This business you're in… your father and grand sires, wouldn't have approved of it. They were good and honest men."

Jerome seemed to think it over for a few seconds and then shrugged.

"I guess you got that right, But it's a sign of the times, my man," he said. "You gotta do what you can to make a dollar. It's a hard world and you gotta survive anyway you can. You shouldn't have a problem understanding that," he told me, and I knew that given what I was, he assumed I preyed upon humans for my own survival. "I gotta live too, know what I'm sayin'?" he concluded.

I slowly nodded. "I guess I do," I replied with a hint of sadness, and then left the building.

I had other places to visit yet this morning, and slightly more difficult tasks ahead of me yet, to see if I could acquire all the other things I would need for Angel.


	8. Chapter 7: Girls just wanna have fun

Chapter Seven: Girls just wanna have fun.

I made it back home several hours later than I had planned on. It turned out with the modern advances in security technology and techiques, it was a little more difficult to break into hosptial blood banks than I had anticipated.

It had been a few decades since I had to play burgler, so I was somewhat out of the loop. Add to that, that I felt bad enough with what I was doing that I didn't want to steal all of what I needed from only one hospital, so I had to hit several in the city to spread the load around. I couldn't bear the thought that someone innocent might die for lack of a blood supply if I cleaned out only one bank.

Not my finest hour as far as capers go, nor the most admirable thing I've even done, but I ended up with about twelve pints of human blood in different types for the effort.

I had hoped that Angel would still be 'asleep', but that hope turned out to be in vain. Lucky, I remembered to leave a note for the vampire girl just in case, with the further hope that she still recalled how to read. The note contained mostly that I had gone out to obtain items we needed, and a additional warning not to leave the house unless it was on fire.

That all slipped my mind, as I opened the door and hear music playing from the livingroom. That wasn't the bad part. Playing lightly under the music, I heard the distinctive tones of my bass!

I dropped the styrofoam cooler containing my pilfered blood on the kitchen table, and slung my leather outback coat over a chair before hurring into the room to find Angel sitting on the floor in front of my cheap Aiwa stereo.

My Evanscenece CD was playing, and Angel sat crossleged with my Zon on her lap, the bass plugged into my small practice amp as she played along to the music.

Her fingers flew up and down the neck, adding octives and harmony to the bassline that I could never hope to match on the best of days.

I was suddenly depressed for a moment, wondering if everybody in the world was a better bass player than I was, even a vamp girl with amneisia. The grand mortal insult added to ego's already painful injury was that it was my bass and I couldn't play it like that.

My next thought turned to panic, as I considered what those super strong little hands could do to the comparatively fragile graphite neck if she wasn't too careful.

I must have audibly squeeked at that thought, and she heard it over the music and her playing.

She turned and smiled at me.

"You're back! I got your note," she told me. She turned the stereo down a bit and then tilted the body of the bass in my direction. "I was bored, I hope you don't mind? I didn't know I could play."

I swallowed hard, trying not to appear too concerned for the safety of my pride and joy instrument.

"You play… very well," was all I could stiffly get out.

"Its very relaxing," she replied, and then ran her fingers down the board playing a riff that would leave me with cramps in my fingers for a week. I wondered how she could get her small thin fingers to run the fingerboard like that so easily, the Zon Legency wasn't known for having a thin neck, quite the opposite actually, which is why I preferred it over even the standard Fender P-bass.

Angel handled it like a pro with decades of experience – which for all I knew, she just might have had after all.

I was pretty much thinking about killing myself about then from the depression.

"I think I must like music," she said, looking back up at me. "I've spent the last few hours listening to some of your collection. I hope you don't mind that either?"

"Not at all," I said, then I couldn't help myself any longer. "But please… be very careful with the bass. You're strong enough to break it very easily and I probably couldn't find another one."

"Oh, I'm being very careful," she promised me. "It would be a shame to harm something so… beautiful. I like the way it sounds. No wonder you're worried about it."

"Yeah, I pretty much like it better than anything else I've ever owned or played," I responded, as I moved toward the front door. Behind me, Angel played something that would have been written for a full string orchestra and making it sound good on a lone bass, and I was debating just slamming my head in the heavy front door when I got there.

I postponed my self-execution for the moment, deciding to man-up and bite the bullet on my mediocre bass talent, and instead retrieved the two jugs of cattle blood that I found sitting on the porch by the door where I expected them to be.

Jerome had been as good as his word.

Lucky for him.

I brought the jugs in with me, back through the living room, and Angel looked up at me with a hint of curiosity in her golden eyes. They must have been sealed well, because it seemed she couldn't smell the blood through the plastic of the containers, which was probably a good thing.

Her eyes asked the question, _"What's that?"_ pretty plainly.

"Cattle blood for you," I told her as I made my way back to the kitchen.

I heard the amp click off, followed by the stereo a second later. I didn't hear or feel her footsteps through the floorboards like I would have with a human, but I was sure she was right behind me as I entered the kitchen without having to look… mostly because I'd discovered she had a very pleasant scent that slightly proceeded her.

I put the jugs on the table by the cooler and then dug under the counter for an old garage sale blender I remembered buying one summer and storing there. I found the device and dragged it out, pausing only to quickly rinse out the pitcher portion of the appliance.

Angel watched me with profound interest, as I plugged it in.

"I have to mix these together," I told her. "I'm going to have to unscrew the cap from one of the jugs and then open one of the pints of human blood I picked up."

"Where did you get pints of human blood from?" she asked curiously.

"Don't asked," I lightly warned, and then inquired, "Can you control yourself while I take care of this?" I asked

She thought a moment and then nodded.

"I think I can. If it gets too bad I'll leave the room and wait for you to bring it to me in the living room instead," she said.

I nodded, having to trust her to know her limits, and carefully uncapped one of the jugs. Angel's nose wrinkled and she sniffed the air a few times.

"It smells sort of… nice," she said, with mild interest. Strangely, I've never noticed blood smelling so 'interesting' before either. But it was something I only vaguely remarked for the moment, thinking I only noticed it because I was apprehensive about the possibility of having a vampire who might go blood mad at any second in the kitchen with me.

I used the measuring marks on the pitcher and poured in nine parts of the cattle's blood. Next after recapping the jug, I opened the cooler and pulled out the first pint of human blood. I used a kitchen knife to nip the small flap off the top.

Immediately, Angel's eyes turned completely dark, and she licked her lips. But she didn't make a move from her spot.

"That smells much better," she said in a voice that only shook just the barest bit.

I had to admit; it smelled pretty nice to me for some reason also, much better than the cattle blood in my opinion also. However, this time it also made my mouth slightly water and my teeth ache. Which was very odd, as I've never really been attracted to blood at all in the past – animal or human.

I again put it down to having Angel in the room with me, thinking vampires must give off a pheromone of some sort when their blood lust was aroused, and that maybe a small part of my own heritage was tuning in on it.

I quickly poured in the last part of the mixture and slammed the lid on the pitcher, not wishing to overly torture Angel if I could help it.

I used a garbage bag twist tie to close up the partly used pint of human blood and tossed it back into the airtight cooler for the moment. I would have to clear out space in the refrigerator for this supply as soon as I could.

Angel's eyes followed the pint bag, but she still made no move toward the leftover bag, even though it was plain that she wanted to.

I hit one of the mix buttons, and the blender growled to life for a few seconds. The noise broke Angel's trance and she turned her attention back to the device and the red swirling concoction inside it.

When it stopped, Angel asked, "Now what?"

I thought a second then offered, "I suppose it would taste better heated up?"

Angel shrugged, but indicated I should do what I thought best.

I was surprised at her self-control and patience, but not too willing to test it anymore than I absolutely had to. I quickly found an old coffee travel mug I had gotten somewhere for free and never used. I've never liked coffee for a single day in either of my lives, both alive and half-alive.

I dumped as much of the blood mixture into the mug as it would hold and then shoved it into my microwave at low-power for about forty-five seconds.

It seemed like an eternity before it finished heating and as soon as the bell rang, I opened the door, finding the mug to be at a happy medium temperature, I pulled it out and handed it to Angel.

She took it, and I though she would bolt it down right away, but instead she sniffed at it attentively for a moment. Her face was blank for the most part.

"Well… here it goes," she said, and then took the first sip.

I waited, actually holding my breath, hoping that it would work as the manuscript claimed.

She worked the blood around her mouth for a bit and then swallowed. She paused for a few seconds more, and then gave a little shutter… that I thought might be a bad sign.

"Not bad," she finally said, and I let the breath I was holding go free. I considered that the little shutter must have been a reaction to her body's need, and not a sign of rejection then.

"Not too bad at all," she repeated with a pleased look.

She then smiled mischievously at me, and suddenly held out her mug toward me, it's contains sloshing from side-to-side slightly.

"Want some?" she asked impishly, most likely in revenge for me questioning her gender earlier in the day.

I knew it was just an impulsive attempt at humor on her part. But the scent of the human and animal blood drifted over me as she tilted the cup my way. I'm not sure if I was more astounded or horrified to find myself responding to the scent. Immediately, my teeth ached and I felt the tips of my fangs protrude better than half their length. The more concerning part was the way my mouth started to water again almost uncontrollably.

I jerked my head away and threw a hand up to cover my mouth. Angel giggled lightly at my response, probably assuming my reaction was one of being repulsed. At the sound of her melodic voice, my fangs slid all the way down behind my hand, and I found myself suddenly with the urge to bury them in her lovely throat. She smelled so much enticing to me now, even more than the blood did at the moment.

I clenched my mouth shut tight, and kept my face adverted from her. Taking the moment to try and will my fangs to retract again, before my hand might slip and she saw them.

_What the hell was wrong with me,_ I silently asked myself? I never in my life reacted to blood in this fashion; I in fact handled what she was now drinking just a moment ago with no real serious effects!

And I've certainly never wanted to take blood from somebody else's throat before. I've never had the compulsion or need to live on blood.

"I'm sorry," Angel was saying with genuine contriteness a moment later. "I shouldn't have done that. It probably grossed you out, and I'm sure you didn't find it as amusing as I thought it would be for some reason."

I nodded, not trusting myself to speak, or to chance opening my mouth and revealing my secret.

A few seconds later I felt the ache in my upper jaw recede, and I quickly ran my tongue along my teeth to make sure that my canine were normal size once more, and they were, so I was able to turn around and face my guest again.

"Yeah," I said dryly in reply. "I'd appreciate it if you'd keep your meals to yourself."

"I am sorry," she said again, making a show of keeping her mug and it's contains close to her and as much out of my view as possible. I could still scent the blood, but it had thankfully lost its strange allure of just a moment ago. I was however more grateful that the strange sudden urge to go for her throat had passed as well.

It had to be something she's broadcasting while she feeds that combines with the blood to connect with my vampire half, I concluded more positively now. I was going to have to be more on-guard of that in the future if she was to remain here in my home.

I've never lived for any length of time in close proximity to a vampire before, so I have to guess that there might be some unexpected complications such as this.

"You're forgiven," I told her. "Just don't do it again."

"I won't," she promised while making an 'X' over her silent heart.

I let the matter go at that. I'd rather have her thinking I was aghast instead of discovering the actual truth about me at this early point.

Maybe it shouldn't really have mattered to me at all, but I wasn't ready for her to know what I was. I found that I didn't want to have to explain my life to her when she already had enough of her own problems to deal with.

And I especially didn't want her to learn that I was at one time the most wanted killer of her kind.

In the beginning I told myself it was because I didn't want to have to constantly watch my back around her. With my past history, I was more likely than not, bound to have killed a friend, family, or coven member that was close to her. Vampires are not known to be very forgiving, and revenge has been known to become a favorite pastime and obsessive hobby for them.

Now I also had to admit… I didn't think I could bear the look in my unexpected houseguest's eyes if I told her who and what I was, and that detail was one of the rare facts she did actually recall clearly.

The mug incident behind us, we retired back to the living room. Angel brought her refilled tumbler of blood, while I settled for the rare glass of Pepsi-cola. I normally prefer green tea iced, but I figured that after the hectic day I've had of playing gangster basher and bugler, that a good dose of sugar and caffeine was just what the doctor ordered to help stave off any sudden bouts of blood lust that may rear its ugly head.

Angel flopped into one of the oversized easy chairs, curling her legs up beneath her as she settled in. I saw that she had commandeered an old pair of my sweat pants I had laying around for herself that were much too long for her petite build, and made a mental note to ask if she wanted me to pick up some more suitable clothing for herself. Seeing she did have a rather sizable amount of money sitting on the dresser of the guestroom still.

I glanced in the corner to see she had placed my bass safely back into its case, for which I was grateful.

I did my best not to think about the easy grace in which she had been playing it just a short time ago.

My ego had taken enough bruises for one day.

She indicated my CD collection and asked why some of the ones that I had burned had such a wide variety of musical genres on them. I saw which CDs she meant, and explained that they were practice CDs of the music I performed with my cover band.

She seemed pleased with that, saying she like the mix of different types of music, and then asked if I'd mind if she put one of her favorites on for background noise.

I gestured that she should help herself, and she bounced over to the player, and after searching through several discs, placed one inside. Hitting the play button, she listened for a few seconds to make sure she had the disc she wanted. She smiled when it was the right one, and then danced her way back to her former seat.

That reminded me. We had a gig coming up that coming weekend at one of our bigger venues. I doubted very much that I could leave Angel here alone for that long, so I was going to have to call the guys and ask them to see if the back-up bass player could take the show for me.

With that in mind I called Donny, the lead guitarist. I got his voicemail so I left a message explaining that something had come up and I'd like the next weekend off if possible.

"Is that because of me?" Angel asked when I hung up.

"I don't like the idea of leaving you alone for that long," I told her. "Its shouldn't be a problem really. We all have back-up musicians in case someone needs or wants a day off."

Angel assured me that she would be fine by herself if I needed or wanted to go. I said it was only one show and no big deal. She shrugged and we went on to chat about other things, mostly the music in my collection that Angel found she liked… and some that she disliked.

Eventually, she noticed what I was drinking and she sniffed the air to get a scent of it.

"What's that?" she asked, pointing at my glass.

I had momentarily forgotten that she couldn't remember a great many things that the rest of us take for granted every day.

"It's a soft-drink. Cola," I told her.

"Its smells very sweet," she said. "Can I try some?"

I thought about it for a moment. "That might not be a very good idea. You might not be ready to attempt human foods."

"Please? Just a taste," she pleaded.

How could I refuse when she looked at me like that? With those big wide gold eyes.

"Okay," I relented. "But only the smallest of sips… just to get an idea of the taste. That's all!"

"I'll be a good girl," she assured me and held her hand out for my glass. With some misgivings, I handed it over to her.

She smiled a little bit, which kind of reminded me of someone smiling in triumph for getting their way.

Angel took the tiniest of sips from my glass, and the smacked her lips as she let the soda roll around her taste buds. All the senses of a vampire far outreached those of a human, so anything that humans find pleasing, a vampire would find it tenfold more so.

"That's very good!" she said with a small hint of pleasant surprise. "It's very bubbly on my tongue."

"Its the carbonation," I told her.

"Oh," Angel replied, as she thought it over for a moment.

I saw the new roguish smile just a split second too late.

With a huge grin, Angel knocked back my glass and took a huge swallow of the cola.

"No!" I cried, moving to stop her just at the same instant the deed was done.

The girl grinned at me as I rescued the remaining soda from her hand. I waited with bated breath, hoping the almost definite reaction wasn't actually going to happen.

She continued to smile smugly at me for several more seconds, and then she suddenly blinked hard and all but lost her confident look.

By the time her look turned distressful, I had grabbed up a nearby wastepaper basket, making it under her just in the nick of time.

Angel vomited like a freshman sorority girl at her first frat party.

"Oh, that was lady-like," I said flippantly as she retched.

I've done a lot of bloody things in my time, and some of those acts would in no doubt have turned the strongest stomach of human or vampire, but vomit was the one thing that almost always made me queasy.

Hey, everyone has something that they can't stand. I was just glad I made it through Angel's bout without joining her.

Luckily, we spent the rest of the night without further incident. Angel listened solemnly while I lectured her on some of the facts of her temporary condition. The most important one for the moment, being that in her weakened state, she wasn't going to be able to tolerate human foods until she fully recovered. She seemed less than pleased with the additional information that even if she were healthy, anything she ate or drank to fit in with humans, would have to be voided later… more or less in the manner she just abruptly experienced.

She was defiant enough however, to point out the mishap was partly my fault for not warning her of the dire consequences beforehand. I countered that I wasn't a medical specialist in any field, and that I had no reason to believe that she would ignore my instructions and behave so childishly.

That resulted in about a half hour of good-natured bickering between us, and ended with me giving her Eleazar's manuscript to read for herself.

Angel consumed several more mugs of the blood mixture while we chatted on safer topic, and we got to know what we could of each other. She was well into the second jug of cattle's blood by the end of the night.

Happily, I had no more flashes of that odd blood lust, though I felt a little guilty about not being exactly truthful about certain things concerning my past and myself that she asked about.

Oddly also, I made a note that Angel was able to stay 'awake' for much longer this time, unlike the prior two times when she fed from me. I could only conclude that it was a good sign that she was on the mend.

The next few hours passed rather quickly, and I was surprised to notice the time when she finally excused herself to retire.

The next morning brought an entirely new set of problems for me. I had risen early and showered, Angel had appeared not long after and joined me in the kitchen. She and I were seated at the breakfast table; her with a fresh mug of the mixed cattle's blood, that had just been delivered that morning, and me settling into a large breakfast of ham, bacon, and eggs.

Which in itself was a touch odd, as I didn't much care for eggs at all, but I had woken up with an urge for them. I put it down to having to replenish the blood I lost feeding Angel the first two times.

We were halfway through our meal when the telephone rang. It was Donny, our guitar player and original founding member of the band.

He had gotten my message the night before about wanting the coming weekend off, and was calling to inform me that Ricky, our back-up bassist, wasn't going to be available Saturday night until late.

I cursed, as Donny stressed to me that I needed to be there for the gig, at least until Ricky showed up to take over. He wasn't pulling any punches, telling me that the group was counting on me to be a team player and all that other bull crap.

Had I been anybody else, I might have bought most of it. But I knew that Donny really didn't get along too well with Ricky, as both had their own ideas of how the band should be run, and the pair clashed constantly. The next gig was one of our bigger ones and the venue booked us at least once a month, and for the bigger party nights of the year like News Years Eve and such. This place in fact had us booked for the next two coming years on certain dates.

If Ricky came on in the middle of the night, Donny wouldn't have to get into a battle of wills before the show with the bass player about how the stage should be set-up and how the song lists should be run.

Donny had just about implied that if I weren't there, he would show up at my house and drag me there. I didn't bother to remind him that he had no idea where I lived.

He was sort of half serious and half joking, but I was annoyed enough to almost suggest he go ahead and do exactly that… and then if he did somehow manage to find me and show up, feed him to Angel.

I looked at Angel's sweet face for a moment as Donny chewed my ear off over the telephone line, and decided I couldn't do that to her.

The poor girl would probably end up with indigestion from munching on a dipstick guitar player.

I finally promised Donny I would be there for part of the night, and he hung up happy to get his way.

I wasn't so cheerful as I set my house phone back in its cradle.

"What's wrong?" Angel asked with a slightly raised eyebrow.

I told her; even though I very well knew with her hearing she heard both sides of the conversation quite clearly. She was allowing me the illusion of privacy in this case, which was very thoughtful of her.

"So it looks like I will have to leave you alone here for awhile Saturday night after all," I finished.

To say I wasn't happy with the prospect would have been an understatement.

"I could go with you," Angel suddenly offered.

I glanced at her as I considered the idea, and then shook my head.

"That might not be such a good idea," I told her.

"Why not? It'll be fun," she countered.

I made a point of looking at her mug, and raised my own eyebrow to silently add that her in a nightclub full of humans might not be the smartest thing at this juncture.

"I'll be fine," she said, immediately picking up on my concern. "I can control myself for a few hours. I haven't attacked you at all, have I? And I can bulk up on as much of this as I can hold before we go." She held her mug up slightly to indicate it. "I'll be too full to want more."

"I don't know…" I started. She did have me on the not trying to drink me dry part. However, I wasn't about to point out that I was slightly more safer around her than a normal human would be. Not much safer, but still safer to a slight degree.

"Please!" Angel then pleaded. "I want to see you play… and I want to get out for awhile and do something. Who knows, it might do me some good to get out and help me remember things! This place you'll be at isn't anywhere near where you found me, is it?" The last she said, with a hint of apprehension, but she didn't appear concerned enough to alter her forming plans.

"No, it's not," I admitted. "It's a club in the suburbs, not in the city."

"Well, it should be safe then!" she added, perking up again.

I grimaced and started to shake my head again. "Angel, I…" was all I got out.

"You can protect me better if I'm with you," the girl added slyly.

I paused in my debate to look at her. She smiled innocently at me, and my heart did that flip-flop thing again. She still didn't know what I was, and a true human could do little in the way of protecting her against another vamp. So, I knew she thought she was snowing me to get her way. Still, she made a good point. If she could go with me, I could keep an eye on her for the most part… and it would only be until Ricky showed up to take over.

And that would be much better than leaving her alone for a few hours with me so far away if something did happen.

"Whew, you're good," I told her, in way of surrender.

She smiled in victory once more, and then leaned over to hug me briefly, probably as consolation for my defeat at her deft and sneaky hands.

Damn, but she smelled so good!

I did have one condition for this proposed night on the town, however.

I wasn't totally convinced that she would be able to handle being around so many humans, especially if said humans had been drinking.

I didn't relish explaining to anyone, particularly the cops, why Angel had taken a nip out of somebody who might had aroused her, one way or another.

Seeing Angel need more appropriate clothing, we decided a short trip into town to shop would be a fitting test for Saturday night. Angel was delighted with the prospect, and scurried away back to the guest room to root though what clothing I had stored there for something more suitable to wear to town.

While she hunted through my leftovers and discards, I checked the local weather and luckily found that it called for heavily overcastted skies for the entire day.

That made it much more easier, as Angel would attract much less attention then if she wasn't shimmering like a diamond disco-ball when the sun came out.

I gave it a little more thought, and had an idea on another precaution that might be prudent.

I quickly left by the back kitchen door, and headed over to my neighbor's house, old Mrs. Winston. I had meet the elderly widow shortly after I had moved in when she knocked on my door one morning thinking I was the prior tenant, to ask if I'd mind removing a bat that had somehow found its way into her living room.

She was a little confused to find me there, but I gladly helped her evict the rodent anyway, and we've been cheery neighbors ever since then.

Even if I had turned down several offers for her to introduce me to a few of her single granddaughters over the last seven or eight months.

She seemed to be of the mind that I needed a "good woman to look after me."

I returned about ten minutes later with a floppy women's sun hat and an equally old fashion pair of women's sunglasses. Mrs. Winston apparently thought my request to borrow the items was peculiar, even after I offered the excuse that I need them for a visiting friend with a sensitive skin condition, but I get the feeling that she thinks I'm odd anyway for turning down each of her granddaughters. All of which, judging by the photos Mrs. Winston insisted I look at, were in fact very cute and/or nice looking human women.

But in the end, she did lend me the items I asked for.

Angel reappeared about ten minutes after I returned, wearing another pair of my old sweat pants and the belt from her original clothing to better hold them up. Over this she wore a un-tucked black Jack Daniels T-shirt that was given to me one night at some club we played as a promotion, and she top off the ensemble with one of my lightweight jackets that had the band's logo silk-screened on the back.

I chuckled when I saw her wearing it, because it was so large on her that it immediately reminded me of a child trying on her father's cloths.

She smiled at me, and then did a pirouette like a fashion model would on the runway, showing off her makeshift garb. It was then that I noticed she had salvage her shoes from that night, and had probably spent most of the time she was away cleaning them up to make them passable.

Her smiled turned into a happy grin at the prospect of leaving the house.

And I figured this was going to be an interesting learning experience to say the very least.


	9. Chapter 8: Cuz’ I’m bad to the bone

Chapter Eight: …Cuz' I'm bad to the bone.

Harley Dobbins drummed his fingers irately on the top of the old rusty metal office desk, the tips of his digits making small dimples in the already fatigued metal. His bright blood-red eyes seemed to be boiling in their sockets, and were focused almost blankly on the wall across the room. In his mind, Dobbins was somewhere else, and it was someplace that didn't sit well with him at all. He was getting angrier by the second.

He suddenly snarled as his fury simmered over. The Rogue vampire didn't even notice that his fingers were tapping so hard now in agitation that they were making small holes in the desk's steel surface.

Theodore "Big T" Parole steepled his long fingers just below his pointed chin and watched his underling growl at the faded old girlie posters covering that very same wall for the fifth time in as many minutes. Emotions fascinated him, and Harley at even the best of times wore his like a sign post for all to see. It was one of the reasons Parole had chosen Dobbins as his current second-in-command of the coven of Hunters, should Harley ever become ambitious and consider betraying his leader, Theodore would see it right away on his face and be able to take steps to eliminate Dobbins.

Right at the moment, something else entirely had crawled up Harley's ass and was festering, and Parole knew it wasn't the scantly clad women on the wall pin-ups that had Dobbins in an uproar.

"Sitting there, growling your fool head off, isn't going to make things better," Big T eventually said when watching Dobbins had become boring.

Dobbins turned to look at the larger, better dressed, vampire. His gaze on the borderline of being an insubordinate glare because of the dept of his ire.

"Carl was my brother, man," Harley told him, for like the hundredth time. "We go way back, even before we were changed – before we became hunters, man. It was always me and him, we always had each other's backs!"

"Except for last Saturday night," Parole couldn't resist cruelly adding, using an inoffensive tone.

Dobbins turned to look at his leader in a blur, the hurt and shamed look on his face couldn't have been any worse if Big T had actually gotten up and slapped him across the face. Parole was again fascinated by the results of his calculated gibe.

"It wasn't all my fault, man!" Harley protested gravely. "That bitch… even after we drew first blood on her, it was like she knew what we were gonna do before we did it during the pursuit. That whole thing with the wild goose chase she led us on… it was like she planned it just to separate Carl from the rest of us. She must not have been as wounded as she led us to believe."

"No one is blaming you personally for Carl's loss to the coven," Theodore broke in, though in truth he couldn't care less about Harley's personal feelings, Dobbins was useful to him at the moment, that was the extent of it as far as Parole was concerned. "Sometimes we get the prey with no trouble, sometimes we take a loss to get it… it's the nature of the Hunt. Its who we are and how we've always lived."

Parole paused a moment and then shrugged. "Things change, Harley. Coven members will come and go for one reason or another. They always do," he added.

The younger vampire shook his head in stubborn denial.

"Not like this, boss," he responded stubbornly. "We're the elite predators on the street, Big T! We're the top of the food chain," he barked while thumping his chest once with his fist. "Going out in a tangle with a human hunter is one thing, but my brother doesn't get taken out by some cattle-grazing bitch! We couldn't even find his head, man. I had to burn Carl's body myself! There ain't no way there ain't gonna be pay-back for that!"

Theodore leaned back in his tape-patched executive's chair and regarded his top soldier. He had fully expected that Dobbins would take this stand.

"So… what are you going to do, Harley?" he asked levelly, but with some inner great expectation at what emotional response his second-in-command would give him. Vampire nature was almost always predictable, but interesting none-the-less to Parole.

The younger man turned in his seat to better face his leader, his red eyes turning to stone. Big T almost smiled, because he knew what Dobbins was going to say before he said it.

"I'm gonna find that bitch. And when I do I'm going to make her wish she'd never been turned. I'm gonna make her wish she'd never been even born as a human."

"Fine," Parole said, easing back in his chair, playing the part of the calm and wise leader. "I'm all for that, its the nature of the beast. And Carl was a good trooper – one of the best, and I agree he didn't deserve to go out that way. But we can't effort to have this F-ing up normal business. The _Head Honcho _paying us the big money isn't going to want to hear about our personal pack vendetta getting in the way of the business he hired us for. We still have to keep his territory clear of trespassers and see to organizing the lesser Hunter packs Martino assigned to work under us. Our coven needs the free hunting grounds he's allowing us, beside the monetary support we're getting. I'll give you leave to take care of this, and you can take whomever you need from the ranks as long as you're not pulling them away from something else.

"Martino will do right by us by issuing a blanket death warrant for the bitch, but even I would prefer it if it was one of our people who took care of business by taking her down. Never let it be said we didn't avenge one of our own… but the main job comes first, you got that? This doesn't interfere in what Mr. Martino brought us in for." Parole gesture around them at the small trash beleaguered office, but also indicating the retired warehouse that had been set aside by their benefactor for their use and housing. "Without him, our coven would still be wandering the road looking for good hunting grounds. We got everything we need here, and we're getting paid for doing what we'd be doing anyway."

Dobbins nodded. "Yeah, I got that. Sure thing, boss."

"Good man, Harley," The leader praised. "You sure you got a line on the grazer who did this?"

Dobbins nodded.

"I had a taste of her just before she got away," Harley confirmed. "She gouged Johnny Hush in the eyes and broke free. We chased her, but like I said, it was like she was one-step ahead of us the entire way. Every time we thought we had her trapped, she managed to slip out of it at the very last second. It was weird, like she knew what we were gonna do before we did it. I still think she was faking being as wounded as she looked too, trying to lure us! That would have been the only way she could have gotten up on Carl."

"Carl was the only one of us that was quick enough to stay on her most of the time. You knew him, he was like lightening in the chase. He'd never once lost his prey while on the hunt the entire time I've known him, you know? She led us far enough away from the scene of the ambush that the rest of us had to backtrack a few times when the bitch doubled back on her trail and then took to the rooftops. She crisscrossed her scent trail so many times that it took us a little while to figure out she was heading back to that club we first spotted her and the rest of the grazers she was with at. Carl was moving after her so quickly he barely left any signs himself for us to tell which direction they were really headed in. When we finally got to that parking lot, we found what was left of poor Carl in that back of that panel truck, and that grazer bitch was gone… she just disappeared."

"So you can track her if you cross her path again?" Big T wanted to know for certain.

"Yeah, like I said, I got a real good taste of her. If I cut her trail somewhere, or get within a mile of her… maybe two miles on a good day. She won't know I'm coming this time and be able to pull any of her tricks, so I'll catch her with no problem."

Parole nodded a single time in agreement.

"I'll hold you to that then, Harley. Settle this right for Carl and the pack, but make this go away soon." Big T thought for a moment more, then added, "And make sure its done in such a way that any other cattle-lovers will have second thoughts about screwing with us. I don't see a reason why we shouldn't let the other prey in the area know who the top predators are in Seattle now."

Dobbins blinked in surprise at the orders.

"We had singled that bitch out of her herd as the main course that night, because she smelled so damned good for a grazer. Her friends would have just been side dishes if we managed to bring a few of them down as well. Most of the pack was designated to keep them busy while we harvested her, because you did leave a standing order about only killing just what we need to feed from on any one hunt. So you're saying now you want her entire coven done too in this case?" he asked for confirmation.

Dobbins knew that as a general rule, vampires who didn't hunt humans for the most part lived in large covens, like herd animals. There might be more members in the group than the pack could reasonably use at one feeding, killing more than that would be a waste of game for later hunts. That she had come from a group of grazers was pretty much a given, even if he hadn't already seen the other cattle-lovers with the bitch who killed Carl that night in the nightclub.

Big T grinned. He made the rules for his Hunters; they were his to break if he wished.

"Know a better way to send a message about our dominance? Of course, if you did manage to capture a few of her coven intact, we could always put them on ice here in the _farm_… for nights when the hunting on the streets is poor. Just make sure this bitch pays hard for what she did to Carl."

Harley smiled for the first time since Carl's final death, obviously pleased to be given a free rein by his leader to avenge his fallen best friend.

"Sure thing, boss. It would be a pleasure."

Parole smiled in return, only his beam was for how easy it had been to manipulate Dobbins.

"Good," Theodore said, and then he thought of one more minor question to ask of his subordinate. "Are you sure that there was no other definite scents you could clearly make out around the death scene? Someone in her coven might have helped her whack Carl. I don't want any of our people walking into another waylay like that again, if that's the case. The question bothers me, only if because I still don't quite understand how a lone grazer, especially one even trivially wounded, was able to get the best of an experienced hunter like Carl?"

Dobbins shook his head.

"Just her. There was some of her blood in the area, but she might have been faking being as wounded as we thought, like I said. The blood trail could have been there just to lure Carl into an ambush she had planned out. That just might be why she led us on such a long chase, to give some of her friends time to set up an ambush of their own. Its possible we didn't get a total head count on her coven. The club was packed that night, and there may have been more than just the five of them and the human pet they were toting along."

"That is a strong possibility," Big T agreed. "If you can take one of the grazer or the bitch herself alive for a moment, see if you can make them talk first about the true number of the coven. We don't want any missed leftovers making trouble for us. What else do you know about the scene of Carl's death?"

"We did find a shattered brick with some of Carl's blood on it, so we figure that the grazer, or one of her friends, used it to attack him. The back of the panel truck we found his torso in was flooded with Carl's blood, so there wasn't much in the way of clues there. It must have been when he was stunned that they took his head off. The rest of the parking lot and the truck smelled like any number of different humans. The place is crawling with them most of the time as would be expected."

"No other vampires?" Parole asked.

"No, nothing definite… only her for sure."

Big T frowned at the statement.

"What exactly do you mean by, 'nothing definite'?" he inquired. "Either you're sure or you're not?"

Harley fidgeted a bit; he didn't like having half-answers for his coven leader. In his view, a good Second in a hunting coven always had absolute positive answers for his leader as much as possible if the pack was to be a successful one.

"There was nothing else that was clearly one of us outside our hunters and the girl," he restated. "But there was something a little weird there."

"Like what?"

"Just an strange scent," Harley supplied. "It wasn't really vampire. It was more like a human, but like no human I've ever run across."

"Moonchild?" Theodore offered, sitting up in his chair as he waited for an answer.

Dobbins shook his head,

"No, not a Were," he replied. "I know what a Were smells like. You never forget that once you scent one of those dogs! This wasn't an animal; it was human, but different. I put it down to maybe being some human foreigner. Someone just off the banana boat, maybe? You know how strange some of them can smell when they live on a different diet than the locals do."

"That's possible," Parole agreed, while rubbing his chin in thought.

"The strange scent was all over the panel truck, so I figure the owner probably hired a immigrant under the table to drive it, maybe load it or something. Anyway, there's no way a freakin' human could have been a threat to Carl. A human would barely have been a snack for Carl, if he even would have bothered with one. It had to be that bitch that's responsible. Her and maybe a few of her grazer herd."

Big T had to agree with the assessment.

"I suppose you're right on that account," he concluded. "Forget about the smelly human then, it was probably nothing. Go find the girl and her coven and put paid to what they did to our soldier – our friend, Carl. Get it done as quickly as you can. We have plenty of other work to do for our sponsor ahead of us in the next few weeks."

"Right away, boss," Harley said as he got up and left the office. He felt better, now that he had his leader's blessing, and was free to seek vengeance for his fallen comrade and friend.


	10. Chapter 9: Every girl's crazy for a

Chapter Nine: Every girl's crazy… for a sharp dressed man.

The shopping excursion into town with Angel was something of a unique experience for me. We decided on visiting Mount Baker, by Lake Washington, rather than traveling into the busier and more crowded Seattle. I was glad when Angel agreed to the smaller town for our test trip, as it would be easier to cover our tracks if anything went amiss.

I had come to rather like the vampire girl in just this short time, and I tried not the think that something going wrong would probably result in Angel winding up dead as a outcome… the Banshee bush knife strapped to my back and slung upside-down under my coat was a constant reminder of that chance.

If she were mistaken in the slightest about her ability to control her bloodlust in public, I'd have no choice but to kill her if she became a danger to the innocent human population of Mount Baker.

I tried several more times to persuade Angel to hold off on this test of her abilities, but she would not be talked out of going ahead with it. She offered the counter point that I was human, and she had not yet lost control while in my presence and attacked me for my blood.

I silently cursed my duplicity, because I couldn't now bring up the valid argument that I wasn't totally human to counteract her logic, without having to explain my duel heritage.

Perhaps at this point I should have come clean with her, if only for the sake of protecting the innocent citizens of Mount Baker. But like a coward, I couldn't bring myself to breech that dark secret with her.

At times like this, I realize I'm not the type of person I would like to be.

On the ride in to Mount Baker, Angel was animated under her borrowed floppy sunhat and old-fashion dark glasses, chatting up a storm in her joy to be out of the house. I couldn't help but to idly notice that the pixie-like vampire girl made even that odd old-fashion apparel look good.

We had discussed the possibility of something bad going wrong several times, and she without a doubt understood the consequences of her losing control of herself, but it didn't seem to dull her enthusiasm down in the slightest. She was more than simply confident in her abilities.

Me… I was pretty much a wreck thinking about it.

We arrived in town much sooner than I would have liked. I reluctantly found a vacant parking spot on the main drag of the town and parked the big SUV. I stepped out of the Explorer, and automatically resettled the Banshee under my coat, and at the same time covertly testing the draw. I again prayed to a god who I knew no longer listened to me that the blade would not be needed today.

Angel stepped out on her side of the Ford, pausing a moment to lift her head up and draw in a deep breath. It might have all seemed normal if I didn't know that vampires didn't need to breathe. Angel slowly exhaled, and turned to me to smile over the hood of the Ford.

"Such a great day!" she said cheerily.

Before I realized it, two elderly women passed by on Angel's side of the vehicle. I froze, realizing also that I couldn't make it in time to get between Angel and them if she snapped.

Angel simply smiled at the pair and wished them both a good day as they shuffled by her. The women smiled and waved while returning the greeting. The girl then turned to me and cocked her head with a crocked smile, as if to say, _"See! No slobbering vampire attack."_

I merely nodded my approval, afraid that doing anything else would betray my great relief and lack of confidence. It probably wouldn't be in my best interest for her to realize the true extent of my doubt about her abilities to control herself… not if I wanted a peaceful day free of the repeated phrase that all males dread coming from a female of: _"I told you so."_

Which I already knew from recent past experience with Angel that she would take a great delight in.

"Let's go shopping," Angel said with a huge grin.

I had been to the small town hundreds of times in the past. The first new thing I learned today about Mount Baker was, that I had never realized before just how many clothing and fashion stores it did support for such a tiny burg.

Angel of course found every single one without error, and was simply in her glory, while I got demoted from escort to lowly pack mule for her amassed treasures.

At the first store we hit, she picked out a designer outfit and changed out of my cast-off clothing in the changing room. The cost of the outfit barely put a dent in the several thousand dollars in cash Angel had arrived with. Besides the outfit, she bought a large designer purse – into which she placed the travel thermos with its built-in sipping straw. The thermos contained her emergency blood supply. She had bulked up on the blood mixture before we left the house and we hoped she wouldn't need what was in the carafe, and we weren't even sure if it would work as a last ditch fallback measure. But it was better than nothing, and the pint of blood was the best safety precaution we could think up.

She also bought herself a new stylish coat from the store, but she chose to keep wearing my old band jacket over her new garb, even if it didn't actually go with the outfit, which in a strange way flattered me for some odd reason.

I guess she had become almost as excite with the idea of going out with the band this coming weekend as she was over the current shopping trip.

However, I might have changed my mind just a little bit later, because the bag containing her new coat was only the first of many packages that I was going to be loaded down with and carrying around half of the town.

The next store saw the replacement of Ms. Winston's sun hat with a newer trendier version of it, along with a scarf and a new pair of $200 sunglasses. The rest of the items in the shop, Angel turned her nose up at after a quick inspection. I did notice that while she didn't recognize most of the popular designer names with the loss of most of her memory, she almost unerringly always picked them out over lesser designer names and even less expensive brand names.

I silently began to theorize to myself that all women – human, vampire, and amnesia victims, had a special gene that enabled them to always find the most expensive article of clothing wherever on Earth that it was located. I wisely kept that theory to myself all day… as voicing it might be dangerous to my health.

After all, even as ill as she was, Angel could still pound me into the ground without breaking a sweat if she had the mind to.

We stopped at several more clothing stores, where Angel tore through them like a small waiflike whirlwind. She often had several sales women simultaneously running around finding her things. I had thought when we reached the end of the main drag of town that the experience was finally over.

I was wrong! Next, we went shopping for cosmetics!

My only reprieve from a potential broken back came as we returned to our starting point before setting out to explore the other half of the town we hadn't hit yet. There I was able to stop back where the Explorer had been parked to dump my current cargo of bags and packages.

I was beginning to think that the sight of me unencumbered was somehow offensive to Angel, as she proceeded to load me down once more as soon as she was able.

After cosmetics, there were shoes. After shoes, there were other feminine things that I never gave much of a thought too, except for the occasional fantasy guys normally have. I quickly learned that shopping for them was something I hoped to never have to endure again.

It turned out that Angel had an ardor for lacey and frilly under garments, which I already admitted, while being a guy wasn't too much of a bad thing in my typical male outlook on such things. Even when she held each piece of apparel up in front of herself and asked my opinion on what I thought about it, and how I thought she would look in it.

What actually was painstakingly torturous was the condemnatory looks I was getting from the older saleswoman that ran the shop. As from her human prospective, she saw a 4'10", 19-year-old, innocent-looking girl modeling intimate wear for a 6'1", 35-year-old, long-haired, rough-looking male – who I'm almost positive the saleswoman was thoroughly convinced was on the wrong side of a prison chain-gang.

The irony of it all was that Angel could very well have been a hundred years older than I was, but I doubted I could get the saleswoman to believe that. So I had to suffer the dagger-like glares I was getting in relative silence, and bear obviously being labeled a deprived cradle robber in her narrow mind.

I had a sneaking suspicion that Angel noticed the silent interaction, and found the whole thing very amusing, as a few of the items she picked out near the end of our visit to boldly model over her brand new silk blouse could not be called anything but down-right scandalous.

After just over three hours and probably wearing about 2 miles of leather from my shoes just on the sidewalks between stores, I was well on my way to being mentally numb, and working toward a walking coma. A man even as old as I was could only take so much of women's fashions before suffering a total brain freeze.

Angel on the other hand, didn't seem even close to being done, or tiring of looking at clothing.

I found a new reason I could curse the supernatural stamina of a full vampire, even if I had a good portion of it myself, because I was still no match for the likes of Angel on a shopping mission.

The lack of sensation clouding my mind abruptly wore off after I suddenly noticed we were no longer in the women's department of whatever store we were in. I had long since stopped keeping track of the names of the stores we visited. I now simply just followed my waif of a charge, and automatically just held whatever she handed to me. It was much easier this way on my sanity.

Instead of woman's fashions, we had somehow wandered into the men's section without me being conscious of it.

My first hint of the danger I was in was when I all at once became aware of Angel holding a man's suit up in front of me to judge the size and fit. In her other hand, were two more suits of the same style in other colors that she had taken from a nearby rack.

Bravely, like the hunter of vampires I once was, I sprang into action when I realized what was happening.

"No!" I cried firmly as I jumped backward a huge step.

Okay, so in all honesty, maybe my brave cry came out more as a panicked squeak actually… and I nearly tripped over all the packages that were tumbling out of my arms.

"Aw! Come on!" Angel said with a hint of annoyed disappointment, accompanied by a perfectly timed stamp of her tiny foot.

I quickly set the rest of her other packages down in a nearby easy chair, and then bought my hands up – ready to defend myself to the death if need be.

"No, no, no," I told her, trying not to sound panicky and shaking my head for added emphasis. "I don't do monkey suits!" And I didn't! You wouldn't catch me dead… or undead… in one of them.

Angel tisked and stamped her tiny foot once more. I involuntarily found myself wincing at the sound, that girl may be amnesic, but she certainly knew how to use a foot stamp for the best effect.

"But I want you to look nice. You don't have anything good to wear out," she complained. "I know because I had a look through all your closets."

"You looked through my closets?" I snapped. I was hoping she didn't get a chance to snoop in the basement or garage, which would have been worse considering the types of items I had stored there.

Angel rolled her eyes at me as if to say I was dimwitted, and then waved one hand down her body to indicate her new clothing. I got it then, she hadn't been snooping for the most part, just trying to find some clothes that I had that she could make fit her until she could get some of her own.

Okay, that I could let go, but she didn't have to rip on the wardrobe I did have.

"What I already own is perfectly fine for my needs," I said a tad bit defensively.

"No, its not," Angel countered firmly, and just as stubbornly.

"Come on, Kage. Let me treat you to a few things, something classy for a change," she pleaded.

I frowned. Angel suddenly wasn't making very many points with me at the moment. How could she say I didn't own anything _classy_? I had several very nice, and _classy_, black turtlenecks in my bedroom closet.

Okay, I had them mainly for if I had to go creeping around un-noticed in the dark… but they also worked just as well for dress-up social functions – when I couldn't avoid them.

"Please?" she asked, giving me those big soft vampire eyes.

_Oww… she wasn't playing fair!_

I recovered and snorted in contempt to show I wouldn't be budged or bullied, and then out of curiosity snagged the price tag from the suit she had been holding up to me.

"$950.00!" I nearly shouted when I saw the price written there… and that was a sale price, not retail! I almost wanted to point out that I could afford to buy my own expensive monkey suits if at some point in the future my brain totally turned to porridge, but that would have meant explaining to Angel how a supposed humble musician in a local cover band amassed several small fortunes for himself. So I wisely kept my mouth shut on the matter.

"So what?" Angel asked, unaware of what I had been thinking.

I dropped the big white tag as if it had suddenly grown big vampire teeth and tried to bite me.

"I'd ask if you lost your mind… but I already know you have," I told her.

Angel frowned at that. "What's the big deal?" she wanted to know. "You've been nice to me, and now I just want to do something nice for you."

"Then buy me a set of new bass strings! I like RotoSounds, there're like only $20.00. Then we can call it even."

"You can't wear silly bass strings!" she argued.

"And I can't wear that, even if it cost nearly a thousand dollars!"

She transferred the first suit to her other hand to join the others, then wagged a free finger at me, brandishing that single pale digit like it was a weapon.

"You're being difficult!" she snapped.

"Glad you noticed."

I was determined not to be cowed by somebody half my size… even if she was a vampire.

Then Angel pulled out the big guns.

Her face suddenly turned sad and hurt, and her lower lips came out in the perfect pout.

"_Foul! Foul! Foul!"_ I was screaming in my head. I would rather she'd attempted to beat me into submission than for her to do that!

She gazed up at me from under her wild black bangs… and then batted her long eyelashes.

"Just one thing?" she asked in a lost little girl voice.

"No!" I said, trying to be strong. Trying to keep in mind that in nearly fifty years, no vampire had ever beaten me at anything.

"Pretty please?"

"I said, no!"

"Please…" she repeated, this time drawing the word out for a few seconds. "With sugar and candy sprinkles on it?"

She batted those eyelashes some more, and the lip pouted out a calculated touch further than before.

Damn it, she was cute… and she knew it!

"Oh! Crap! Crap! Crap! Damnitalltohell! All right," I surprised myself by surrendering without much of a fight, so just like that I kissed my undefeated record adios. I was outclassed by what amounted to a vampire midget and I knew it. "But just _one_ thing!" I warned her, holding up a lone forefinger so she couldn't say later that she thought she heard me say two or three things.

"And not this expensive rag," I added, indicating the suit she had been trying to fit me with. My petty condition was the only way I was going to save even a scrap of my dignity at this point

Angel frowned, but she took the victory for what it was worth.

"Okay, I can find something else… _that I like_," she said, turning back toward the rack to replace the first set of suits she had picked out.

_Yeah,_ I thought, _like I even considered for a second she would leave me a say in the matter. _Vampires were sneaky, conniving creatures even if they came in pretty packages – like Angel, I sourly reminded myself.

Before she could set the clothing back, a dapperly dressed salesman chose that moment to show up and be both helpful and irritating at the same time.

"Can I help you?" he asked, in that same snooty tone that you hear sales people in expensive stores use in the movies or on TV. It was overdoing it for the tiny burg of Mount Baker, and it grated on my nerves right from the get-go.

The clerk glanced over Angel's new garb with an approving eye, and then he turned to me dressed in old blue jeans, boots, and a button-up work-shirt and his looked turned snobbishly sour.

I found myself thinking he probably practiced that look every morning in the mirror, and then wondered how he was going to be able to do it tomorrow if I ripped his lips off today?

To make matters worse, he noticed the suits Angel had originally picked out, and he suddenly seemed very pleased again with her tastes.

"Those are very fine choices, madam," he told her, gesturing toward the suits. "Very popular this year with the who's who of society. And you can see they are on sale this week." He then turned to me and said while looking down his nose, "Your daughter has very excellent taste in men's suits, sir." He ended that comment with a single raised eyebrow that plainly said in his opinion, I would be well advised to let my 'daughter' dress me from now on.

I momentarily considered calling up my claws and going for a total over-haul of his snooty head instead of just his perpetually puckered lips, and then taking it home with me to use on a scarecrow for my garden. Then I recalled that I didn't have a garden at home, and thought that Angel might become upset with me if I committed a murder during her shopping trip… no matter how justified it would have been.

That, and the fact that she didn't need to find out about me that way, earned the bozo a reprieve… but only just barely because I was sorely tempted to try my hand at amateur plastic surgery.

I still blasted the man with daggers from my eyes for the next couple minutes though. Angel looked surprised at the 'daughter' remark, and then tried to cover her smirk. The gesture however failed miserably to cover her snickers at all.

"_Oh, I am going to make you pay for this,"_ I mouthed silently to her.

Which only made her plainly laugh all the harder.

I finally managed to escape the men's department without a decapitation, and after compromising on a $395 sports coat, and only because Angel flatly refused to buy anything cheaper. Even after I found a perfectly good coat for $69.00 on a reduced price rack.

Angel pouted of course when I absolutely refused to even look at complete suits, but she seemed satisfied for the moment that I now owned a garment that, while she still considered cheap at that price, it was somewhat classy and serviceable in her opinion.

I, on the other hand, couldn't wait to get home, douse it in holy water, and then bury it in the back of one of my closets. Out of sight, out of mind, you know. The movie vampires' weakness is they can't stand to look at a Christian cross; with me… it's any sort of formal wear. It makes me cringe.

Angel was just going to have to get use to the fact that I'm not the type that can be domesticated.

Thankfully, that store was the last one she wanted to visit. We returned to the Explorer and its cargo of bags and packages and added the latest items to the trove. The back seat and rear compartment were so jammed full now that I could barely see anything in the rear view mirror except store logos and plastic bags.

"What do you want to do now?" Angel asked as she buckled herself into the passenger seat.

For a second I nearly panicked, with the nonchalant way she asked I thought she was getting ready to set me up for a new shopping venture. She had all the clothing and footwear that any woman could possible desire for a single day, what more could she want?

For some reason, I suddenly had visions of me trailing behind her for the next few hours inside a furniture store as she looked over items to redecorate my house to her tastes. I grit my teeth slightly, getting ready for a new battle of wills. A man's home is his castle after all.

My fear turned out to be absurd; as I glanced at her I saw that she was simply awaiting my answer with open expectation. She was genuinely interested in knowing if I'd like to do something of my own for a bit while we were out.

I considered my options for a moment. It had been awhile since my last trip into Mount Baker, and the town had a very nice Antiques Mall that I occasionally like to visit when I was having bouts of nostalgia.

I suggested the store to the girl, and she said she liked the idea very much. I also thought, that it might be possible that something there might jar her memory, as we still didn't know exactly how old Angel really was.

I turned down the main drag of the town, and headed for the Antiques place. Angel chatted lightly about the sights she saw out the passenger window. I noticed that she had taken out the thermos and was sipping at the contents.

She must have sensed me glancing at her, because she turned to look at me a second later, her face half hidden under her new floppy sun hat, and her eyes concealed by her equally new dark sunglasses.

I made a small nodding gesture at the thermos, silently asking for an update on what her condition was.

I must have looked more concerned than I thought I was letting on, because Angel offered me a reassuring grin. She tilted the big shades upward so I could see that her eyes were still a bright honey-gold.

"See? Just taking the chance to top up," she informed me. "Nothing's wrong."

I nodded again as she dropped her glasses back into place, relieved that her control was holding up better than even hoped for. It looked like our precautionary measures were working out just fine.


	11. Chapter 10: Scars are souvenirs

Chapter Ten: Scars are souvenirs you never lose, the past is never far.

The Antiques Mall was part store, part flea market, and part museum all rolled into one. Row upon row of cases filled what once was a large supermarket years ago, and held whatever old items the vendors specialized in or just wished to stock them with.

Angel and I started in the front and worked our way down the rows, slowly heading toward the rear of the place. We took our time examining what each case held; sometimes Angel knew what certain things were, and other times she had to ask. Both the fairly new and the really old took equal turns being familiar or strangely unknown to her.

Nothing seemed to hold a solid clue for her, or to me, what her true age might have been.

When I came here alone, I would often spend hours among the cases, looking over items I might have owned at one time, when I was still human.

It depressed me a tiny bit when I saw things I had owned only 40 or 50 years ago called _vintage_. It actually pained me one day when I saw a wooden toy that I remembered my parents giving me one Christmas when I was but a boy labeled as a _rare antique_.

I got to thinking… perhaps that is what I have become, nothing but an antique.

Immortality has forever been heralded as the ultimate prize by most of mankind. I think it would take a rare breed of man to endure such a fate. I believe most of us are far better off than we know with just living our allowed time and then passing on. I considered not for the first time, that I was glad I was not truly immortal… but I could sometimes curse that I was taking too long to die.

That's why I often times liked it here despite the melancholy thoughts the place could give me.

Here among these old things, is one of the few places that could almost feel like home to me again in some way.

Without thinking, I had drifted away and into the past, and not realized it until Angel slipped her cool hand into mine and dissolved the spell.

I broke my slight trance to gaze down at her, and found that she was deeply inspecting me, her head tilted just barely to one side in opened curiosity.

"You looked lost for a minute there," she said to me.

I smiled, trying to cover my unexpected lapse.

"I like old things," I told her in simple explanation.

She smiled back at me, and then let go of my hand to slip her arm upwards to link her elbow through mine as she led me over to the next antiques case.

Once there she cooed over an antique gold necklace and ring, and I suddenly foreseen she would be going home with the pair. She certainly had more than enough cash left to her to buy them.

I felt myself warming as I stood back and watched her excitement as she called a sales clerk over to open the case so she could get a better look at the pieces.

I was actually enjoying myself, and stranger yet; I was quietly content in a way like I had never been since my change. Since those long ago last days I had spent with my Stephanie.

Angel tried on the ring first, finding it only slightly large on her finger. Without warning, the sight made my heart skip and I flashed back to the day Stephanie and I bought our wedding rings. She had carefully picked out a set that would match the engagement ring that I had bought for her all on my own. I remembered that venture, and the nervousness I felt picking that ring out without anyone's help. I was well aware that I had no sense of what a woman would find pleasing in jewelry, let alone in a ring of that importance and consequence.

I was sure I had made a blunder in my choice, and most likely had selected the most hideous ring ever made by human hands… or at least, it would have been such in my beloved's eyes.

I was so relieved when Stephanie shrilled with honest delight after she opened the small purple velvet box to see the ring I had chosen, that I nearly fainted dead away on the spot.

Less than a week later, she was dead… and I was no longer human.

That fresh heartache helped wash the memory away… as horrible as that sounds. One had to use what was at hand in order to push onward. Either that, or one tipped over the edge of sanity from just carrying all that grief around with them for almost a century.

Sometimes though… I think I've fallen over that periphery a very long time ago. It was just taking a long time to finally hit the bottom.

However, I was once again in the antiques store watching Angel carefully inspect her finds. Angel who had short, wild, dark hair… while my Steph had long flowing strawberry blonde locks. Stephanie was tall with the curves of a woman; where Angel was petite and as slim as a young girl.

Stephanie had been human.

Angel was a vampire.

There was no comparing the two, except for maybe the kindness in both their souls.

And possibly the way they both were able to warm my heart when it had been so cold for so very long.

As a young man my illness had left me with no pleasure in life, until Stephanie happened upon me. As a vampire my existence had been far worse than my human life for the first part, and then mind-numbingly stagnant for the last.

…Until this vampire girl literally ran into me in a dark parking lot.

Angel then turned to me and held the necklace up to her throat, asking my opinion. I smile and muttered something appropriate. It must have been the correct thing because she turned from me and told the clerk she would take both pieces.

It was then that it all hit me… I had been despondently lonely twice in my lives. And each time, a woman opened my eyes to it and had in a way, done something to correct it.

I had been alone for such a long time that it no longer had registered on me. I had become immured over time to the bleakness of my life; grown so use to it, it had become the norm. I had people, humans, in my life, like the band. But they were really nothing more than acquaintances, as opposed to true friends.

I fooled myself occasionally, by making more _acquaintances_ like Jerome's great-grandfather and grandfather. I would tell myself they were friends… but in fact, I never let anyone get too close.

I had known nothing like Angel for close to one hundred years. And now here she was, filling my days and nights.

Making me feel… human again.

She smiled at me once more, just as the clerk handed her a claim ticket and left with her new purchases to take them up to the checkout counter where they would be waiting for us when we decided to leave. She tugged eagerly and pulled me to the next case in line.

In a daze, I went along with her, moving along on autopilot as I turned over this new insight in my mind.

It was silly of me to baulk at this resurrection of life Angel was bringing to me. There was no real reason to fear it, but I did. After all this time, I wasn't so sure if I wanted to _feel_ again.

I wasn't sure if it was a good idea, and I wasn't sure if it was a good idea feeling it over her.

I was hiding too many things about myself from her. Things that, given both our natures, I believed a reasonable person would have been smart to hide away.

She was a vampire. I had already pointed that out.

I had once been a killer of vampires. And she was not aware of that fact.

The nasty truth was going to come kicking and screaming out into the light sooner or later; it always does no matter how deeply we bury it, no matter how many doors we might attempt to lock it behind.

What would she do when she learns that we are, for all practical purposes, mortal enemies? What happens to my newfound feeling of being alive then? Do I go back to the loneliness and living with it until I no longer realize its there again?

And that's if one of us isn't dead as a result of my secret coming to light.

Knowing this, a smart man wouldn't get _hooked_. Wouldn't let her become so important to him. He would see to her being healed and returned to wherever she belonged to as quickly as possible.

A full vampire, a half-vampire, and a dark secret like this was a ticking time bomb!

Angel, my sweet visiting vampire, turned, and there was a twinkle in her gold eyes that said she was enjoying our time together.

Damn, I thought silently as I made myself smile back.

Too late! That hook I was just thinking about had set itself a long time ago.


	12. Chapter 11: Did you lose yourself

Chapter Eleven: Did you lose yourself somewhere out there… Did you get to be a star?

Unloading the Explorer once we got back home seemed to take just as long as filling it had.

But that was probably just my nearly exhausted imagination, and not reality.

As soon as we were finished, Angel disappeared into the guest room… _her_ room really now I supposed it was. And for all I knew, she was gloating over her recently acquired booty like a pirate over a treasure chest.

I was just glad and perfectly content to finally collapse into one of my patched easy chairs, and let myself turn into a puddle of fleshy putty.

My feet seemed to be killing me, and that was probably my imagination also, seeing since I've become a half-vampire it was pretty hard for simple walking and standing to tire me out. My fatigue was most likely more mental than physical.

I might have been more relaxed now that the shopping task was over; if opposite from me, lying on my couch, wasn't that damned sports coat Angel insisted on getting. The mauve dust cover of the garment mocked me from across the room, where Angel probably had placed it… because I sure as hell didn't put it there.

I gave it the fiercest scowl I could work up at the moment, but the coat held its ground, staking its arrogant claim on my sofa.

"I shall deal with you directly," I promised the garment in a drawl that I thought I had long since lost over time, and practice to change it.

The coat wasn't impressed in the least with my vow, and I closed my eyes to shut out the sight of it.

I must have dosed off for a half-hour power nap, which I was wont to do when I didn't get my full three hours of sleep every night. The front door closing barely registered on my consciousness, and I didn't rouse until Angel dropped the mail onto the end table at my side with a sharp paper slap.

"Whose Justan Archer?" she asked me as I reluctantly cracked an eye open.

The first thing I noticed was that the sports coat was gone, and I idly wondered where it had gotten to. I figure it was probably lying in ambush somewhere else for me and would rear its ugly head when I least expected it. But the more likely and reasonable explanation for the coat's disappearance was that Angel had put it away somewhere while I dozed… before I could 'accidentally' misplace it.

Good thing for it, the task best left to me… and I'd be more likely to put it away in a trashcan without waiting for a convenient accident to happen.

"Who is Justan Archer?" Angel asked again when I was taking too long to answer her. "He gets a lot of mail here."

I mumbled something even I didn't understand as I sat up straight and took a second to rub the sleep from my eyes.

"That's the name I'm using here," I explained.

"Really?" Angel said with a hint of interest in her tone. "One of these days you're going to have to tell me your real name."

"As soon as you tell me yours," I quipped, as I scooped up the mail and sorted through it, finding nothing but bills and this month's subscription to Bass Player magazine. Sweet! I've been waiting for this issue! It had a feature on vintage Zon basses.

"Ha-ha! Very funny," she replied with a sour look.

"I thought so," I added sincerely, as I began thumbing through my new periodical to see what other treats it held in store for me this month.

"Ah! Hello? That was called sarcasm," Angel informed me.

"I know," I said, flipping back to the table of contents to peruse the offerings.

Angel wasn't put off but my apparent disinterest in the topic.

"So how did you come up with that alias?" she wanted to know next. "You do know that _Justin_ is spelled wrong, right?"

I nodded absently.

"I'm aware of that. I did it on purpose."

"Why?"

"It's a private joke," I said.

Angel shrugged her slim shoulders. "Care to fill me in on it?" she inquired.

I felt without looking beside me on the table, until my probing fingers hit the stack of bills, and then I took whichever one was on top and tossed it to her.

"See if you can figure it out," I challenged. I thought it might keep her busy for a few minutes and allow me some time to read a little of my magazine.

Angel caught the letter and flipped it around to read the address again.

"Justan Archer?" she queried to herself. "Justan Archer… Justan Archer. Archer, Justan," she tried.

She turned it around in her mind for several minutes and then finally asked, "If I rearranged all the letters, will I come up with your real name eventually?"

"Nope," I responded, still reading. "Its not that complicated."

She frowned prettily, which I couldn't help but catch out of the corner of my eye.

"Justan Archer," she continued to mumble. "Justan… Justan… Just..an…OH!" she cried as it suddenly clicked for her.

"Just an Archer!" she called out.

"Bingo!" I replied, pointing a congratulatory finger in her direction while I still read the article I'd started.

Angel was silent for a few seconds, and I didn't have to have a second pair of eyes to know that she was regarding me somewhat crucially.

"That's dumb!" she announce a moment later, a small hint of disappointment in her voice. She had probably been hoping for something more complex and cleaver for her sharp mind to work at for a while, not something that was so simple it was right in front of her and she didn't see it.

I shrugged as if to say, _it is what it is_.

She pressed her lips together in a thin line as she thought it over a little bit more.

"What's it suppose to mean?" she asked a moment later. "You didn't pick that little bit of word play out of the blue for no reason."

"It was a hobby I had for awhile," I said, and then realized I was getting dangerously close to a truth I didn't want to get into.

"Its still dumb," she repeated.

"If you say so," I countered, hoping by agreeing with her she'd drop the topic.

I got my wish for once, in a way.

"That brings me to something else I've been meaning to ask you about," she told me.

"What's that?" I inquired as I finished up the article I was reading and began trying to decide which one I wanted to read next.

"This would be easier if you put the magazine down and talk to me… if you don't mind."

The one thing that I found that has remained constant through the hundred and some years that I've walked the Earth is that when a woman asks you to stop doing something so they could 'talk' to you, chances are pretty good that you're not going to like what's coming next very much at all.

"Okay," I said in surrender, and closed my magazine. I placed it carefully on my end table and gave it one last longing look before I gave my full attention back to Angel.

"What is it?" I asked, biting the bullet and hoping to get whatever it was over quickly and with as little pain as possible. I had return nightmare images of Angel insisting that we go furniture shopping on the morrow.

She gave me what amounted to an uneasy smile – the kind that almost said she was about to gently bash my décor to within an inch of its life.

"I wanted to ask you a few things… the first is, why do you have so many fake names," she came out with.

I nearly sighed with relief; my home wasn't in immediate danger of a vampire chick makeover. But this new topic wasn't that much better either.

"Its not that I'm holding it against you or anything," she continued when I was silent for a few seconds. "I imagine with being who I am, I might have several myself to protect me."

"Let's just say I prefer my privacy and leave it at that," I tried.

She shook her pretty head.

"That might be a small part of the reason," she countered me. "But I think you use them for the same reason I would have to… for protection. I'm right, aren't I?"

"And if you are?" I asked. The girl was insightful and clever; I'll give her that.

"Nothing. I just want to know whose after you is all?"

I shrugged.

"Nobody at the moment… as far as I know." That was in fact the truth, as I knew it anyway.

Angel nodded.

"Okay, let's let that question go for a moment. My second question is: You know a lot about vampires for a human… is that knowledge why you're hiding? Is it my kind that you're in hiding from?"

She was looking at me dead serious now, and I knew I had to have had a blank look of shock on my own features. She had, in a roundabout way, come pretty damn close to hitting the nail on the head.

I could also tell this was a question that had been eating at her for quite some time now. I made a snap decision, thinking I already had way too many secrets that I was keeping from her, and decided on telling her as much of the truth on this subject as I dared to, if it would give her some ease of mind.

"Its part of the reason, a small part," I admitted to her. "Vampires don't like humans knowing they exist, let alone have knowledge of any of their other secrets. I believe there's even a law among them that says that any human with such information must die."

Angel looked horrified.

"So you mean to say, if others like me knew that you know about us… that they would kill you? That they have tried to kill you?"

"I think that's pretty safe to say," I added, and then bit my tongue before I went and got too cute with the innuendoes. It really wasn't a laughing matter, the girl was half mortified over what her people did to humans, and I clearly saw now she was half terrified for my sake. "That was a long time ago, and they haven't bothered me in a long time," I added.

"That's just… horrible!" Angel cried.

"Not all vampires believe in that rule," I said, trying to soothe her. "And I can assure you, it's been a very long time since any vampire who believes in that law has tried to find me. I'm sure that they've forgotten all about me by now, so I'm perfectly safe." That part was a wee bit of a lie, but it would make her feel better.

"That's good! We should be trying to live peacefully with humans."

"You know by now, because you are one of them, that some of the covens survive on hunting animals, sort of just like humans still sometimes do," I added. "Some of your people are trying their best to live that way - peacefully. But on the other hand, I have to tell you; those vampires with the secrecy law have a point. If the human race found out that vampires really existed, there'd be a wide spread panic and who knows what might happen then? Humans aren't known for their ability to accept things that are different than them, especially things that frighten them. And learning that most vampires prey upon humans, they aren't going to bother trying to make the distinction between the human feeders and the ones who live on animal blood. Your people have to walk that thin line and keep living in secrecy if you are to survive."

I reached over and took her hand, and she gave it to me willingly, returning the slight pressure with her grip.

"I wouldn't want the vampires like you to be harmed because humans couldn't tell the difference between you and a human-hunting vampire," I added. As I said it, the statement almost caught in my throat. I knew all to well about what I was talking about… because I was guilty of that very same thing.

"I don't think all humans would react badly," she said hopefully in return.

I could only shrug again. I wished I could explain why I knew differently.

"Some might not… some, probably most, would I think," I settled for instead.

She looked at me hard.

"You didn't," she said firmly.

Inside I cringed. She said that with such faith in me, I felt like a cad for not coming clean at that moment. I couldn't do that, so instead I again reverted to telling half-truths.

"Well, I already knew you were out there, so there wasn't much for me to get freaked out about."

"You even knew the danger, what would happen if others like me find found out you know about us. And still… you risked yourself to help me. I wish there were more humans like you."

She gave me a look of genuine affection that would have made any heart melt… including mine.

"And I wish… _all_ the vampires were like you," I told her.

And for the first time I felt like I had said something totally honest to her.

Later on, we turned on the TV and settled in for the night. I was disappointed that all that was on tonight were reruns.

Angel laughed selfishly at my complaint, saying that as far as it mattered to her, all the shows we watched were all brand new.

I guess having amnesia has some benefits after all.

After our brief discussion, which pretty much ended with the reason why I have so many false names, Angel disappeared back into her room for a few moments, and reappeared wearing one of my old T-shirts that hung down almost to her bare knees… instead of some of the silky things I knew she had bought this afternoon,

She flopped down on my elderly couch next to me, making the old springs moan as they reminded me that as a vampire she was a little heavier than she appeared to be. She curled her shapely legs up under her, and I did my best not to think about them… or what she might or might not be wearing under that old shirt of mine.

Hey, I may be old… but I'm only half-dead, okay?

And I think I've already said several times that I was far from perfect.

Angel made herself comfortable, and then reached over and deftly plucked the TV remote from my hand without so much as a, _by your leave_. And then began surfing the channels.

She may be cute as a button, but I had discovered early on that it seems Angel could be a bit of a bully sometimes.

We watched several sit-coms, all of which Angel picked out. She relinquished command of the control only to pop into the kitchen and heat herself up an evening mug of blood.

She was back at my side sipping at her mug before the commercials ended, and graciously let me pick the next few programs to watch.

We watched two more shows, clearly geared more toward men and Angel endured them without complaint, even managing to get excited at several high-speed car chases. Toward the end of the last one, she had positioned herself so that she was leaning on my shoulder. A while later, she yawned and then slip herself under my arm and hugged me.

"I'm tired," she murmured, as she snuggled closer to my side.

It probably should have been far more interesting to have a beautiful young woman like Angel snuggling up to me, but I was still more than a little concerned that she was still falling into these sleeps. I did my best to keep from showing it, and instead curled my arm around her shoulder to let her know I didn't mind her using me as a pillow. The manuscript didn't give an exact timeline for healing in this type of injury, and that lack of knowledge perhaps made me worry more than I should. The book merely implied that healing would take as long as it had to, depending on the particular vampire in question, and their overall health and condition. So the only thing I could really do was hope that Angel was progressing along at a rate that was fine for her.

"Go ahead and sleep if you need to," I told her. "I'll see to it that you're tucked in later if you want to stay here for now."

She smiled. "Thank you," she murmured again. "I'm too comfortable to think about getting up and moving."

She cuddled herself closer to me, and I found that I was soon casually stroking her arm as I watched the ending of one of my shows. By the start of the next one, Angel had ceased to breath, telling me she was out of it finally. I sat there for a while watching TV, with this beautiful girl half in my lap, idly stroking her cool arm to comfort her as much as myself, and I realized suddenly once more… that I was very content with the way things were.

Angel had no heartbeat, nor did her chest rise and fall now, so I had assumed she would sleep as the dead did, not moving an inch until she decided to wake. Okay, so I was relying on cheesy vampire movies for that assumption. I have never spent the entire night watching Angel _sleep_, so the truth is I just didn't know for sure if she moved around or not.

I was very surprised to find that wasn't exactly the case at all, at least it wasn't that night. I discovered that if I moved slightly for any reason, Angel would stir and readjust her position in response, just as a sleeping human would.

It was oddly comforting to me to know that there could be something humanly familiar about vampires, even though it was caused by illness.

It made her seem less alien to me, even though somewhere along the line I had personally ceased to view her that way any longer.

I moved my hand upwards without thinking about it, and stroked her wild hair; it just seemed the natural thing to do at the time.

I was rewarded when a faint smile graced her perfect lips. She hugged me a little tighter in response, but of course didn't wake.

I looked down at that beautiful elfin face… and knew that she was going to be the death of me yet.

… But I found that I didn't mind that much.


	13. Chapter 12: Return to me, my salvation

Chapter Twelve: Return to me, my salvation.

Edward found his brother just where he knew he'd be. Exactly where Jasper had been at every dusk since the day after losing Alice. Out on the back patio of the Cullen home, tonight watching the half-moon rise. Tonight the sky was unusually clear, as if the cloud cover had moved off as a courtesy for his brother's vigil.

"Jasper?" he said to the motionless silhouetted form of the older blond-haired vampire. The patio now always brought back memories of a happier time, as it had always been one of Alice and Jasper's favorite places around the home. Edward still vividly recalled bring Bella home to officially met his family for the first time, and her look of awe as Alice greeted her while prancing like a prima ballerina off of the tree limb that grew over part of the patio.

"I'm not coming in, Edward. Not yet," came Jasper's thin voice.

Edward frowned at Jasper's back, his brother had become little more than a ghost, and they seem to be losing a little bit more of him every day.

"I just thought you'd like to join us for a game of cards… or something. Bella has arranged with Charlie to stay a few hours passed her normal curfew. She wishes to spend time with all of us tonight," Edward told him. "It would do you good for a change to come in and join us."

"No. Go on without me."

"Jasper…" Edward started, getting ready to try and persuade him a bit more firmly.

"I said no!" Jasper nearly barked this time. "I promised her, Edward! I promised her that if we were ever separated in this fashion, that I would watch the moon rise every night. And she promised that wherever she was, she would do the same. So at least we would know that we were both doing so together. And I'm going to keep doing it every night… until she returns."

Edward sighed, partly in loss of his sister, partly in worry for his brother, and partly because he hated being so helpless. Jasper had suddenly snapped out of his mindless grief with this unexplained faith that Alice was still alive, though he wouldn't, or couldn't, give any of the family a reasonable explanation for the conviction.

Edward walked up to stand directly behind Jasper, where he placed a hand on his shoulder.

"That may never happen, Jas," he said, and he hated thinking it, let alone saying it. But Jasper needed to start accepting that it might be fact… that it probably was fact.

Otherwise, he was going to whither and die before their eyes.

Alice was gone, and there was nothing anyone could do to change that. Jasper was still here, and Edward was going to be damned if he would lose his brother too… even if it was to a broken heart.

Jasper was always the quiet strong one. Most times, Alice spoke for him as well as herself. Jasper had been human in a time where men where the strong silent type, rarely showing emotion or how they felt.

Edward was surprised when his brother reached up and covered his hand with one of his own. At first he thought his stoic brother meant to shake his hold off his shoulder, instead, Jasper padded Edward's hand, as if Edward were the one who needed consoling.

"She's alive, Edward," Jasper told him with that strange conviction, while never taking his eyes off the moon. "If she were dead, I would know it without a doubt."

"I want to believe that, Jas," Edward said. And he wanted to believe that more than anything, but he had been unable to touch his sister with his gift, and he tried reaching for her still several times a day. Alice simply wasn't there anymore.

"Then believe it," Jasper replied quietly, breaking through Edward's thoughts. "She's just lost is all… and until she finds her way back. I will wait out here every night at moon rise as I promised."

Behind them, Edward heard the patio door slide open and Bella's scent drifted to him almost immediately. He didn't have to be able to read her thoughts to know Bella had come to see if she could help convince Jasper to join them.

"Very well, Jasper," Edward gave in. "We'll be inside if you change your mind. Don't stay out too late." He turned then to regard Bella, who had come over to join him. Edward slightly shook his head to tell her he'd had no luck with his brother. Bella's pretty face turned sad at once, and Edward's heart ached in response. She had been wearing that same look for much too long, he thought to himself, and he couldn't help but worry for her as well.

She'd been hoping Jasper would relent and come inside with them. Bella had wanted to be around them all, especially Jasper, so she could feel closer to Alice.

Edward indicated with a nod of his head that they should go inside and leave his brother be.

Bella's lips drew tight, and then she lightly shook her head, making her long hair wave and filling the air with her wonderful scent.

"I'd like to stay here for a few minutes with him if you don't mind, and keep watch too," she asked.

Edward turned back to his brother, who was still watching the night sky and appearing to be paying them no attention.

Edward knew she was asking for some time alone with his brother to share their common grief.

He didn't fear any longer that Jasper would harm Bella if left alone with her; on the contrary, Jasper had been bending over backwards since the unfortunate incident during her birthday party to prove that Bella was now perfectly safe with him. Even on that ill-fated night they had lost Alice, Jasper had taken personal charge of Bella while the rest of them fought off the Rogue attack to buy what they thought was safety for her. And because of that, no matter what anyone said or did, Bella still blamed herself for Alice.

Bella on top that self-guilt missed Alice so very terribly, like she would have a favorite sister that was suddenly gone.

Edward was helpless there also; as Bella literally cried herself to sleep every night in his arms over his lost little sister. He knew that Bella needed more than ever to feel close to Alice to help battle her grief, and that meant being close to Jasper when she could be.

"Don't stay out too long," he told his love. "You're not wearing a coat… and you know how annoying Rosalie can be when she has to wait for a card game to start."

That last was meant to try and cheer her up a little bit.

"I won't" Bella promised him with a weak smile. With the events of the last few weeks, Edward had taken to treating her as if she were more fragile than normal. She might have found that annoying at any other time, but she had to admit she'd been more of a train wreck lately than usual, so she really couldn't blame him for being overly protective.

Edward nodded with her assurance, and went back inside without another glance.

Bella knew why Jasper watched the moon every night, and she moved up beside him to silently stand watch with him also. Hoping that somewhere out there Alice was in fact doing the same thing, and could feel her now watching with Jasper also.

Despite her best intensions of keeping him silent company and not disturbing the blonde vampire, Bella felt one tear escape and make its slow way don't one cheek. She irately brushed it away with her hand, and as soon as she did it was like a signal for several more to start a slow race down her cheeks.

Surprisingly, Jasper turned slightly to regard her, a nonjudgmental look on his handsome features.

"I miss her," Bella said with a sniff, and then mentally kicked herself. She hadn't wanted to weigh down Jasper with her own misery. She felt she'd done enough damage to him, and he had his own cruel burdens to bear without her selfishly adding her own.

"I know you do," Jasper responded back in his quiet voice. She was surprised to feel his arm gently curl around her shoulders, and then his cool hand pat her arm in reassurance. The gesture touched Bella, and her eyes started to water more, and another sniff escaped her.

"I keep expecting to turn around and see her there chasing me down with some sort of expensive clothing I'd absolutely wouldn't want to be caught dead in," Bella went on to say. "And when I turn around, she's not there and it hits me all over again. I wish I had never gone out that night, and then you would have been there to help protect her, instead of babysitting me. I wish you had just let them take me instead of splitting up…"

She was surprised when she felt a cool finger brushing her lips to silence her. It was there for only a split second and then gone, but she had ceased speaking as a result.

"They weren't after you. You're not to blame, sister," Jasper then told her, his tone full of nothing but his sincere feelings. That broke open the floodgates that Bella was trying her all out best to hold back, and she started to freely sob.

Almost immediately, Jasper became nothing but a wet blur in her eyes.

The next thing she knew, Jasper had folded her in his arms just as gently as Edward would have, letting her cry on his shoulder.

He stroked her hair and whispered reassurances. Telling her of his faith that Alice was merely just lost, and she would soon find her way back to them, if for no other reason than because she was the smartest and most cunning vampire Jasper had ever known in his long existence.

All the while, he named her _sister_, and told her how cross Alice would have been if he'd allowed a younger family member to come to harm that tragic night. Bella had to know that Alice would never have forgiven him if anything had happened to her. And that Jasper himself couldn't have born to live with anything like that happening either.

Bella found herself at a lost for words on how much that alone meant to her. She wished she could tell Jasper just how much that lightened her soul, even if she still didn't believe she deserve the pardon.

The only thing that came close to letting him know what she was feeling was when she called him _brother_ in return.

She had an idea that Jasper understood how she felt, when he carefully hugged he a bit tighter.

At the card table in the house, listening to Rose complain at the delay while Emmett snickered, Edward caught the feeling that centered on Bella through his bond with Jasper. His brother's spirit had uplifted just a little bit. Bella had reached him and connected to share their grief, and there kindled a feeling of family coming from Jasper for his beloved Bells.

A grave tragedy had struck the family, but they were growing closer as a result of it in many ways.

He just wished it hadn't come at such a precious cost.


	14. Chapter 13: I wanna be a Rock Star

Chapter Thirteen: Hey…Hey… I wanna be a Rock Star.

A few days after the shopping trip, I wheeled my hand-truck loaded with my Ampeg Bass amp and 410 cabinet through the rear door of Club Cloak-N-Dagger, with Angel tagging right behind me carrying my Zon bass in its case like she was my own personal roadie. I chuckled to myself thinking that not even the highest paid professional rock stars had roadies that looked like Angel, though I sure they would have loved too!

She looked around the nearly silent club and stage area with a certain fascination.

"I feel like a rock star being back stage," she told me, seeming to be thinking the same thing I just had been, while continuing to check out the dark stage lighting suspended over the stage. "I bet you never get a good look at this stuff during club hours when everything is going."

"No, the lights are pretty bright… and hot, from the stage," I told her.

I chalked her sudden interest in the entertainment world up to the last few days that she'd spent viewing every music station my TV would pick up. I believe that by now, she knew every top-40 music video by heart… and could sing them better than the original artists did.

The small vampire had dressed in a casual but classy outfit that she claimed she had bought especially with tonight in mind. It was still hard for me to believe that the white silk blouse and red vest alone cost three times what I would bring home in pay for the gig night. I had no idea what the skin-tight shiny black pants were, I only knew that she paid over $200 for them… and that they looked good on her.

Even in the dimmed lighting of the club now, Angel still seemed to shine like one of her namesakes.

I was going to suggest she keep my old band jacket with her, if only to identify her as being with the band to the club security and other employees, and thus they wouldn't bother her looking for a cover charge if she wandered around while I was busy or on stage. Even though I kind of thought the worn out coat would clash and ruin the effect of her current, more expensive, garb.

I never got the chance to suggest it before we left home, as she showed up wearing it anyway as I loaded my gear into the back of the Ford. She didn't seem to mind either that it almost fit her a little like an overcoat, or that she had to roll the sleeves up so they wouldn't over-hang her slim arms.

I also noticed now that she further claimed the coat as her own by adding her golden 'A' brooch to the front of the jacket, right above where my name had been embroidered.

I had a feeling that I was never going to get the coat back at this point… but that was all right with me.

But on the plus side, I'm almost positive I'm the first one in the band to have a vampire for a groupie… so that should count for something, even if I could never mention it to anyone – ever!

The rest of the band for the most part was already there, and this was easy to tell because I saw all their vehicles parked by the stage door as we pulled in. They were almost done with setting up their gear on the low stage as Angel and I walked in.

Kim, our female lead singer, was the first to notice our arrival. She turned at the sound of the door opening, and then did a double take as she saw Angel trailing behind me carrying my bass case. She covered the look of shock on her face almost immediately, as she tried to nonchalantly elbowed our keyboard player, Aaron, who had been bent over the back of the PA system with her as they connected the complicated tangle of wires and patch cords that made the power amps, mixer, and soundboard all work together.

Aaron irately waved her off the first few times as he concentrated on getting all the connections right, until she eventually got his attention with her persistence and he pulled his head out from the stacked rack cases to see what she was on about.

"_Here it comes,"_ I thought silently, and I had been partly dreading this moment ever since I agreed to let Angel come with me tonight. I have never left a gig with any of the so-called 'groupies' that follow the band around, let alone ever brought somebody to one of the shows.

Without a doubt at this point in our band history, the others just assumed I would never leave or show up with a woman, and probably privately questioned among themselves where certain of my orientations lay. Not that I ever made an effort to enlighten them, as I considered the matter none of their damn business.

And by the look on their faces, they certainly had never considered I would ever show up with anyone who looked like Angel does.

I'm not sure if that doubt ticked me off or not, just yet.

Aaron's jaw dropped for a few seconds, then he rubbed his eyes to see if he was seeing things in the current low lighting of the venue.

I immediately got the point of their looks of pure amazement and decided it was indeed annoying, and thus, started to make me grumpy before I even had said hello to any of them. I never really talked to anyone that I didn't have to… mostly because intoxicated people made very little sense most of the time, and because it was probably a good idea for me to keep as low of a profile as I could if possible. Don't ask me why I chose to join a cover band in that case; I'm still trying to figure that one out myself. I never left a single show before with anyone, mostly for the very same aforementioned two reasons.

And I've never before brought a girlfriend to a gig. So what?

It didn't mean that I couldn't get a girlfriend if I really wanted one! And I really don't think you could classify Angel as a girlfriend actually. At the moment she was more like Dick Grayson to my Bruce Wayne… or given the fact that she was still stronger and faster than I, it might be the other way around… but you get my point.

And also, you try being a hundred and twenty years old and find something in common with women today to talk about. Not as easy or comfortable as you might think!

Kim bounced lightly from the stage to greet us, something she never did when I arrived by myself.

"Hi, Justan," she called, overly sweetly, which set my nerves on edge. "Who have you brought with you?" she asked next, innocently of course.

As if she didn't know! Kim had been one of the worse offenders, ragging on me the most during the last weekend's gig, when Angel had been dancing and spurious flirting all night below my place on the stage.

Kim had found it so entertaining to torment me most of the night that there was no possible way that she couldn't help but recognize exactly whom Angel was.

"Kim, this is Angel," I said by way of introduction, and being falsely polite in the most obvious of ways to let her know she wasn't fooling me. I did mention before that band mates could be like siblings, right?

Especially when it comes to heckling each other.

Kim's smile grew as she saw she was getting a little bit of a rise out of me, and I made a mental note to mention how wide I thought her butt was getting tonight… over the mic sometime during the set. Bands are like families in a way as I said, the siblings can't help but to bicker and tease whenever the opportunity presents itself… but revenge can be a bitch.

A lot of the time, I would give anything to be an only child though.

"Angel, this is Kim, our lead singer," I finished the introductions.

Angel must have sensed my agitation, because she turned on her vampire charm as she shook Kim's hand. Kim probably didn't notice how cold and hard Angel's own hand was, as she seemed to be caught in Angel's golden eyes, and falling under her spell.

"N-Nice to meet you," Kim stuttered out, unable to break away from Angel's stare.

"The pleasure is all mine," Angel said sweetly with a dazzlingly smile. Kim was happily married to Jimmy, our drummer, and as far as I knew wasn't much interested in other woman in an intimate way… but I was suddenly pretty certain that she would have left him in a heartbeat at the moment to follow Angel to the ends of the Earth.

"Knock it off," I sub-vocalized, knowing Angel would hear me perfectly… and that Kim wouldn't notice anything at the moment but what Angel wanted her to notice.

Angel let go of Kim's hand at the same time she released her gaze, and the singer took half a step back and shook her head as if she'd been daydreaming. She suddenly looked a little flushed to me.

"Whoa! Sorry… got lost there somewhere," Kim apologized with a tiny bit of puzzlement. She smiled at Angel again, if Kim had a wise-ass comment lined up, to make about the young-looking vampire showing up with me, it appeared to have slipped her mind for the moment. "Can I get you something to drink?" she offered to Angel instead, while pointing at the bar, which was just opening. The woman looked very eager to please Angel in any way she could.

"No, thank you. I'm fine," Angel told her.

"Okay, let me know if you need anything," Kim said, looking just a tad disappointed. "Its nice to see Justan at a show with somebody. I hope you enjoy it."

"Thank you again. I'm quite sure I will," Angel replied sweetly.

With that, Kim wandered away, pausing once to glance back at Angel and smile again as she mounted the side steps to the stage.

Yup. Kim had fallen under the vampire whammy!

Angel chuckled lowly.

"Say the word and I'll have her barking like a dog for you," she said lowly to me.

"I wish you wouldn't do that. They're hard enough getting along with without you messing with their heads," I said in response.

"Sorry!" she said lightly. "I just sensed she was starting to annoy you, and I gathered she had intended on some teasing, so I'd thought I'd help."

"Thanks anyway, but I think I can deal with them in the normal ways."

I wisely chose at the moment to cancel the 'wide butt' comment later tonight. Not that Kim had a large backside or anything, quite the opposite really. I just had the mental imagine of Angel deciding it would be fun to make her believe it and then putting the thought in the singer's head.

I abruptly realized I was probably was going to regret telling Angel to leave my perturbing band mates to me, as a moment later, I was back to being all out annoyed and grumpy again.

"Why Justan Archer! You old dog, you!" somebody shouted from the rear of the club.

Normally, it always brought a little smile to my face that not a single person had yet to figure out the word play with my current alias. But this time I groaned inwardly at the gratingly familiar voice, and then I turned in that direction to see Donny just parting company with the club's owner and walking up to the stage area to join us.

His eyes were openly leering at Angel.

"I can see why you wanted the night off," he said crassly, as he jovially punched me in the shoulder. It was all I could do to keep from growling and punching a hole in his chest and ripping out his still beating heart. It didn't help matters any that he was bluntly looking over Angel like she was a hunk of fresh meat.

I tried to keep in mind that Donny was in layman's terms – a _swine_ when it came to women. And that he was pretty much clueless as to just how much he irradiated the rest of the population. He had always been the south end of a northbound horse, and he was never going to change.

"Hi," he said to Angel with what he thought was a lady-killer smile. "I'm Donald Novak, lead guitar play and vocalist for the band," he concluded proudly. Donny did share much of the singing with Aaron during the night to give Kim short breaks during the sets. To do otherwise, would quickly burn out her voice. The fact that I only sang several songs made me nothing but a back-up player in the group in Donny's _esteemed_ opinion. But then again, he also considered himself a guitar-playing version of David Lee Roth for some reason also, so his opinion didn't mean much to anyone except him.

"And if I'm not mistaken – and usually I'm not about a pretty face," he was now saying, "You were at the show last weekend, right?" He held out his hand with its callused guitar-player fingers for Angel to shake.

"Yes, I was. I'm Angel," Angel replied, taking his hand briefly in hers. I was half hoping that Angel might take it upon herself to crush it, but she didn't. To make it cheesier, instead of simply shaking it, Donny turned her hand over and gallantly bowed over it as brought the back of it up to his lips to kiss before she could completely pull it away.

"And what an _angel_ you are indeed," Donny said as he rose from his kiss.

I nearly barfed right there.

Angel, obviously being more tolerant, and gracious, than I was allowing myself to be at the moment, allowed it, and only gave him a small un-encouraging smile in return.

But as usual, Donny didn't catch on. With his perfectly combed blonde hair and chiseled features, he was a hit with the drunken groupies that followed the band from venue to venue almost every weekend, and he's probably successfully bedded most, if not all of them to be sure. But occasionally he tries for a woman outside his class, and when he gets shot down, his ego normally chalks it up to the lady being a lesbian.

It must be nice to live in his world?

"So, Angel… are you here with Justan?" he asked innocently.

Dammit! I nearly cursed out loud. She was standing there holding my bass case and wearing my band jacket. What was there to doubt about whom she was with?

"Yes, I am," Angel came back smoothly. "I've been staying with him since last week. He's been very, very good to me."

"Really?" Donny asked with a hint of surprise. Angel nodded solemnly to confirm her words and took a half step closer so that she could lean into me in an affectionate way.

Donny, being Donny, still didn't get the hint.

"Well, if you ever get tired of shacking up with a lowly bassist," he said, with what he probably thought were smoky bedroom eyes. "Let me know if you want to move on up to a guitar player," he finished with a sly grin.

"Back off, Donny. She's with me," I said firmly with a hint of a deadly edge creeping into my voice, even half-vampires can get territorial on occasion if pushed. I was viciously wondering how he was going to play tonight after I broke all his fingers?

I must have uttered the comment louder than I had intended to in my sudden ire, because Kim turned toward us from the stage. She caught my attention out of the corner of my eye, and when I glanced at her she mouthed the words, _"Don't kill him. We need a guitar player tonight,"_ and then she gave me a sympathetic look that told me she knew exactly what kind of a schmuck Donny was being at that moment.

It made me feel a little better that someone understood what I was enduring, and my blood cooled a bit.

Despite her plea, and the band's need for a guitarist, half my mind enjoyed the mental image of serving him up to Angel after all. It would serve him right to be made lunch.

The other half of my mind just wanted to slap him for being a sleaze now, but that was nothing usual.

I told you, bands could be like family.

Angel was much more diplomatic about the matter, and she just gave him a vaguely apologetic look that said I had made a very valid claim to her company, and that she had no plans or intensions on changing that current situation.

Ever clueless, Donny gave a horselaugh and then popped me on the shoulder all friendly-like.

"Hey, Jus! Only kidding, buddy. You know that," he said.

Yeah, and I'm the Pope, I thought to myself. Angel wasn't quite done with him yet however.

"Thanks for the offer, _Danny_," she started.

"Donny!" the guitarist correct immediately. I could see that he found it inconceivable that anyone, especially a beautiful woman, would ever forget his name just after meeting him a moment before.

"Opps, sorry!" Angel said with fake innocence that only I caught. "But I think if I ever get tired of bass players, I'll be trying a kazoo player next. Guitar players seem to be a dime a dozen and not very interesting. In fact, Justan was just telling me earlier today that you couldn't throw a stick in a crowd of people without hitting three or four guitar players every time."

It was priceless! Donny's jaw just dropped open, and for once he was absolutely speechless.

I decided right then and there that I was instantly in love with Angel… who simply could not be after that slick burn? This was much better than just simply killing him!

Angel waited a few seconds, and then gave him that heartbreaking smile.

"Only kidding," she said, and her light laughter was musical, which was a delight after Donny's clueless braying.

My own laughter wasn't so polite. Lucky for him, I then decided to put thinking about his demise on hold for the moment, as Angel had just trounced him pretty good… and despite his lack of real social skills, he was an excellent guitar player. And we needed him if we were going to play tonight.

Donny could only just nod his head in bewilderment, "Hey, good one! No problem though, I was just jazzing ya," he said as he turned to wander off, scratching his head all the way.

"Okay, I change my mind," I muttered lowly as Donny drifted away. "Him – you can mind screw as much as you want," I told her. "Though I'm afraid you won't have much material to work with."

Angel turned to me and grinned.

"That wouldn't be much of a challenge," she whispered back. "Besides, it was fun just to bust his bubble."

Suddenly… I wasn't so annoyed anymore.

Ricky was scheduled to take over from me at the midnight break and play until the 2am finish. The show started right at about 10pm, like it was suppose to. We may argue and annoy each other to the point of contemplating murder for the most part, but as a band we were tight and coordinated, like a well-maintained machine.

Angel started her night by dancing at my end of the stage once more, and this time I didn't find it so unnerving. She showed her approval and enjoyment occasionally by closing her eyes and gently swaying in place, getting lost in the music, and in the process gaining her own set of admirers again from around the club. But then again, Angel could attract just as much attention by just standing in place as she did when she really moved on the dance floor.

I was flattered when she kept serious eye contact with me to show her support while I sang, _"Smooth"_ by Santana – which is one of the tunes on a small list of songs I'd even attempt to sing lead on… as in my estimation, my singing voice was only barely passable at best. Angel nodded her head sharply once in a while as she danced, to let me know I was pulling certain parts of the song off wonderfully… in her gracious opinion.

I'm not sure if anyone else in the venue shared her optimism, but I found I appreciated her feedback and it gave me the urge to reach for new levels, so to speak. And I put more effort into my vocals and tried some new things.

After a little while I decided I didn't care too much if anyone else liked it, with Angel there spurring me on… I was actually having some fun playing with Rob Thomas's style on the song.

This time, and probably for the first time really, I paid more attention to the audience at the end of the Santana tune, and was genuinely surprised when I realized the amount of applause I was getting. Angel was first among them, jumping up and down of course, and cutting loose with several unladylike ear-piercing whistles. I glanced at my band mates, and saw several looks of slight surprise on faces, and Kim wandered over to me and slapped me a high-five, mouthing the words to tell me '_I nailed It',_ because we couldn't hear each other over the crowd.

So I guess tonight was an all time best for me.

As my _supposed_ girlfriend, Angel quickly became well-known to all the club's employees as being "with the band" in short order, not that many people would have trouble noticing her regardless of who she had arrived with.

She helped out during the set by making runs to the bar to fetch drinks for the band whenever one of us waved to her. No matter how loud the music or crowd was, no one ever had to repeat an order to her twice, and I was hoping none of the guys would notice her apparent super-human hearing ability.

Likewise, the club's security didn't bother her when she decided to come up on stage and dance beside and with me while Kim belted out Melissa Etheridge's _"Like the way I do."_

I'd like to say that I was perfectly professional enough to not let Angel's grinding against me from behind bother me during the end jam, but it was so distracting that it bordered on torturous – but in a good way.

Instead of getting annoyed, the rest of the band seemed to enjoy her impromptu antics. Pretty much everyone was powerless to become upset with Angel no matter what she did.

Kim, who was normally very territorial when it came to anyone who might have a better vocal talent than she possessed, didn't seem to mind sharing the mic with Angel doing back-up vocals on Collective Soul's _"Better Now"_. Even though Angel demonstrated that she was able to reach notes several octaves higher than Kim could.

But then again, Kim was still suffering from the Vampire whammy gaze, so she probably wouldn't have uttered a peep if Angel decided to take over for the rest of the night and kicked her off the stage.

However, several times Angel retreated up to the stage solely because several guys became infatuated with her and refused to leave her alone after she refused their requests for a dance. Eventually, the bouncers caught on and started to shag the would-be dance partners away from the small vampire girl when they became too insistent. It was pretty obvious by the way they catered to her also, that Angel had them under her spell as well.

It had appeared that by the end of the first set, Angel, and her charisma, had pretty much taken over the club without anyone but me being the wiser.


	15. Chapter 14: My Tiny Dancer

Chapter Fourteen: Hold me close, my Tiny Dancer.

We ended the first long set with Muse's _"Supermassive Black Hole"_ to thunderous applause, which Angel seemed to be leading once more.

By then, Ricky had arrived and was waiting on the stage wings to move some of his gear onto the stage proper. He was going to use my bass amp for the rest of the night, so I only had to pack up my guitar stand, vocal mic, and bass to clear out.

As soon as the stage lights dimmed and the house DJ started to play his CDs during the break, Angel bounced back up to the stage to enthusiastically greet me.

"That was great!" was the first thing she said to me, she followed that up with a big hug.

I had to admit, with her watching and then coming up on stage to dance with me, tonight I had played one of my best sets ever. The bass and the music seem to come alive in my hands. I almost wished I could stay and finish out the rest of the night.

But I had other more serious things to think about. Watching her tonight, it would have been too easy to forget what she was… and think of her as a normal human girl.

"Thanks," I told her. "How are you feeling?" I asked, trying to inspect her eyes under the dim colored lights of the club for telltale signs of thirst, the faint light made it hard to tell anything for sure.

She smiled and tilted her head happily at me. Now I could just make out that her eyes were still that warm goldish brown, which was a load off my mind. I had worried a bit that maybe the club scene might be over-taxing her control.

"Just fine," she reported. "No urges at all. And I still have my back-up mug out in the Ford if anything happens to change."

"That's good," I said, genuinely pleased.

"Hey!" she suddenly shouted over the house music, as she grabbed up my hands in both of hers. "Do you think we can stay longer?" she asked excitedly. "Please? I'm having such a good time here and I don't want it to end so soon. Besides, I loved watching you guys play, it be a shame to end the night so early when we really don't have to."

"Well, Ricky's already here and setting up. I'm done playing for the night," I protested.

Angel just grinned widely.

"So we'll sit down here, and you'll be part of the crowd for a change," she said.

Well, she was handling herself just fine and was in no distress, so I couldn't come up with a valid reason to deny her. Beside, it was hard to say 'no' to her when she was batting those big eyelashes at me.

Seeing we were going to be staying a while longer yet, I went to the bar and found a spot to wedge in besides Aaron the keyboardist, and ordered a plain orange juice for myself. I turned my back to the bar while I waited for my order, and watched Angel skip around the room, mingling with the crowd, and stopping once in awhile to chat with a regular fan or two who had recognized her as being with the band now.

She was always smiling and graceful, listening to what they had to say as if it were the most important thing in the world. She'd laugh when it was required in the conversation, and then dazzle them with her smile once again while touching them on the arm or shoulder before moving away, only to be stopped by the next fan to start the process all over again with them.

She was so natural, that she probably would make the perfect band manager or PR person. Not a person she interacted with suspected that this little bright waif was the most powerful being in the nightclub. And I had carefully checked before allowing her to roam too far, there wasn't another vamp anywhere in the place so I was confident she was safe.

As I watched her, I realized that from a musician's point of view, she'd also be the perfect band girlfriend too. I've seen it too often over the years in bands, where a member gets a girlfriend, or boyfriend, who clashes with everyone else. That is never pleasant. With Angel, everyone simply loved her on sight.

I shook my head to rid myself of that notion. Angel had a life prior to running into me, and once she recalled it, she'd probably want to go back to it. Getting these wild ideas in my head was pointless.

Especially getting them over a vampire for someone in my position.

Luckily, Ricky chose that moment to distract me by coming up and asking how the room was. Meaning he wanted to know how the bass was sounding in the mix, given the shape of the room and the different types of materials that it was constructed from, and that filled it. Such details were important to consider especially for a bass player, as they all affected the sound of the low-end.

Ricky was an amateur sound enthusiast, and read countless book and manuals on recording and sound engineering. I gave him my humble and not as well informed opinion, and I knew he'd be back up on stage shortly tweaking my bass amp to the room and his bass guitar. I normally didn't mind him doing that because he had the better ear for it, and the settings on my amp usually came back sounding better as a result. That is… until I started playing with the knobs again somewhere down the line.

We were talking about new gear we'd like to try out, when Angel unexpectedly pushed her way between us.

"Excuse me," she said and grabbed my orange juice, and before I could react she took a small sip and returned the glass to me. "Sorry! Thirsty," she explained. "Been talking a lot." I saw that the sip she had taken was probably barely enough to moisten her throat, and not enough to make her really sick. Apparently she had learned her lesson about human drinks fairly well the first time.

Angel then turned to look at Ricky and bounce once on the balls of her feet.

"Hi," she said brightly with a little wave, and then just as suddenly she was gone again to mingle with the crowd.

Ricky looked after her curiously for a moment, and then turned back to ask, "She with you?"

"Yeah," I answered a bit glumly, and waited for the ribbing I supposed was coming.

Ricky's eyebrows both just rose slightly.

"Wow," he said, just before taking a drink from his beer mug. When he set the glass back on the bar, he picked up again telling me about a new bass he read about with new generation electronic pick-ups and on-board EQ circuit, just as if Angel never interrupted us.

That's what I liked about Ricky, beyond music, guitars, and the band, he was so laid back nothing else phased him in the slightest. He was a pretty great guy for a human.

No wonder Donny and him mixed like oil and water.

The break ended a few moments later and the band was called back to the stage.

I walked that way, more out of habit than anything, and saw Angel with her head together with Kim at the foot of the small stair case leading up to the short stage.

She was whispering something in the lead singer's ear, and before I could get close enough to hear what it was, Kim pulled away, smiled at the smaller girl and nodded before scooting up to the stage to take her place behind her mic stand.

"What's going on," I asked nonchalantly as I came to Angel's side.

"Nothing," she replied. "Just making a song request."

I saw nothing alarming about that; the band took requests all the time. And Angel had relayed several of them during the first set for fans in the crowd that had stopped her.

Angel and I found places in front of the stage as the group opened the second set with _"All you wanted_," by Michelle Branch, Angel bopped against me to the song, singing the chorus at the top of her lungs with the rest of the audience.

Several times, Kim, Aaron, or Ricky caught my eye and then tugged on their ear. Kim and Aaron were asking me how the mix sounded from out in front of the PA. Ricky was asking me how the bass sounded within the mix itself. All three times I gave each of them a thumbs up, which made them all happy.

Angel leaned back into me and swayed, occasionally drawing both my arms up with hers to join in a crowd wave. I let her do it because it made her happy, and I really had no choice given her strength anyway.

If I decided to be non-cooperative in her fun and she wanted to push the matter, I would be little more than a life-size puppet to her. Better to go with the flow in this case, and besides, who wouldn't want Angel to be holding their hands?

About the fifth song into the set, Kim gave us a wink and then started gabbing to the crowd from the mic.

"We got a special request from the newest member of the _Bend the Signal_ family," she was saying, and Angel began bouncing up and down excitedly on the balls of her feet again, and clapping happily, leaving me to assume that they were about to play the request she made just before the set started.

"But… seeing he's still here, I'm gonna need our other bass player, Justan, to come back up on stage and help us with this one," Kim went on to tell the audience.

I knew immediately, that the next song was going to be "Broken" by Seether - the version with Amy Lee. Not only because it was the only song Kim and I shared lead vocals on, it was one of Angel's most favorite songs. She had discovered it on my practice CD's and played it constantly, often times accompanying it in an octave range that threatened to shatter all the glass panes from the windows in the house.

The audience was clapping wildly because they liked the song, and after all who couldn't like anything Amy Lee sang on?

Yeah, okay, she's one of my favorite new artists too. So sue me.

Angel was now pushing me toward the stage, Kim was waving me up, Ricky was laughing at my predicament and un-strapping his bass because he knew I want to hide behind it on this song.

"Go on!" Angel was urging.

I felt sort of like a man on the way to his execution, but I mounted the steps to the stage and accepted the bass from Ricky. The neck on his Warwick was similar to my Zon, so I could make the change to it without much of a problem. Like most bassists, I'm very finicky about the size and string spacing on my bass necks. Something too thin and close, and my fingers get all messed up, and then I hit a lot of wrong notes.

Well… I hit _more_ wrong notes than usual, that is.

Ricky bounced off stage and out into the crowd, picking a spot perfectly in front of the mains and subwoofers of the PA. I knew he wouldn't miss a chance to listen to how his bass sounded out in front.

Once I was all settled in with a few practice runs on Ricky's bass neck to get the feel for it, I nodded to Kim that I was ready, and Donny started playing the guitar intro to Broken.

I eased into the first verse, which was only me singing. Kim had taken her cordless mic and wandered off into the crowd like she sometimes did. The fans liked it when she mingled with them and sang, so I thought nothing of it at the time.

At the first chorus I heard a female voice join me lightly in the background over the stage monitor, just as Kim was suppose to. I ended the last verse of the chorus solo like it's supposed to go, right on the money.

We played the bridge through, and then the female lead takes over from there.

"_The worst is over now and we can breathe again…" _came over the monitor at my feet, but it wasn't Kim singing!

The crowd cheered, and I turned stage right, to see Angel climbing the last step and walking onto the stage. In her hand, set just in front of her pretty lips, was Kim's cordless. I winced automatically, fully expecting Angel's voice to shred human eardrums backed with over four thousands watts of PA power behind it.

"_I wanna hold you high – you steal my pain… away…"_ came out next as she walked up next to me, and she was in perfect harmony with my imperfect voice! I couldn't express my relief that she wasn't using her full vocal range at the moment, which would have been very heard to explain away.

"_There's so much left to learn… and no one left to fight…_

…_I want to hold you high and steal your pain,"_ she continued on flawlessly, singing the lyrics to me while holding my eyes with hers.

To the best of my knowledge, my condition has left me immune to a vampire's glamour. But I swear at that moment, Angel was drawing me in as we came into the second chorus.

We blended perfectly together, though I'm sure that was mostly her doing.

_"Because I'm broken when I'm open and I don't feel like…_

_ I am strong enough…_

_ Because I'm broken when I'm lonesome and I don't feel right_

_ When you're gone away…"_

It was the strangest thing. I seemingly forgot that I was on stage, or playing the bass line to the song. It just came out without me thinking about it, the same way I matched her as we sang.

Her gaze held me, and it was like we were alone together. Even more odd, I had the feeling Angel was connected to me and feeling the very same way.

I hadn't realized that the song was over until my fingers struck the very last note and let it ring. Then gradually the applause of the crowd broke through the spell between us. Angel smiled up at me, looking very pleased. She bit her lower lip slightly and then reached around to hug me, just as Ricky appeared to take his bass from me.

Angel returned the cordless to Kim with her thanks.

Kim was clapping with the audience, and as soon as she had control of the mic once again, she announced our names to the crowd once more, and then told us, "Take a bow, guys!"

Angel pulled me into one whether I wanted to or not, and then we cleared off stage so the show could go on.

At the foot of the stairs, Angel turned to me and threw her arms around my neck. She pulled herself up until her feet left the floor and hugged me tightly once again.

"That… was terrific," was all I could say. And I meant her performance, not mine.

"That was so much fun," she replied as she nuzzled me cheek-to-cheek for a moment before letting herself down.

I totally agreed with that part also.

"So… what do you want to do now?" I asked her over the stage volume of the music.

"I think it be nice to spent a little time with you all to myself down here on the dance floor," she told me with a meaningful tiny smile.

I found myself baulking again as I realized she wanted me to dance. I could perform just over a hundred different martial arts katas perfectly every time; I could even walk over a high wire without breaking a sweat.

Just don't ask me to dance.

"Oh!" I said, pulling slightly away. "Umm… I really don't dance. I can barely slow dance," I confessed. I was the only bass player I knew that had absolutely no rhythm out on a dance floor.

She twisted her elfin face into a funny sour look, and yanked me back closer to her.

"You don't dance. You don't do nice clothes," she said, "You are a real troll, you know that? Well, someone has to give you a total lifestyle makeover, and get you out from under that bridge you're stuck hiding under… starting tonight!"

"How is it, that you don't remember your name, but that you remember what a troll is?" I asked.

She pursed her lips together for a moment, and then lightly jerked on my arms – thankfully. Keeping in mind she could rip them out of their sockets if she wasn't careful.

"Stop trying to change the subject," she said to me.

Damn! She was just too smart for me!

"Come on, you sort of bop around while playing on stage, that's like dancing," she added.

"That's more my way of keeping time," I replied.

"Dancing's the same thing, only you move more," she countered. "Here, I'll show you."

She pulled me with her, and I had no choice but to try and keep up with her. It took a few minutes, but eventually I found a sort of rhythm, and as long as I focused on her I was able to do something that I guess passed for dancing.

Surprisingly I didn't feel too much like an idiot, and I didn't see anyone pointing at me and laughing outright. Then again, I was out on the dance floor with the prettiest girl in the place, so how much of an idiot could I be?

Angel seemed pleased with my progress and for the next two songs attempted to teach me some new moves. She made it look all so easy.

I caught a break on the third song, as it was a slow one, one of only a few the band did actually.

"Ah! This I think I can handle," I said as I pulled Angel closer to me, feeling a little bit more in my element. Remember, when I was born, Dirty Dancing wouldn't be invented for about another ninety-something years.

Angel came into my arms with the grace of an experienced ballroom dancer – and she probably was for all we knew.

For some strange reason, Elton John's "Tiny Dancer" was running through my mind at the moment, and I really didn't need to ask myself why that was.

Angel gazed at me with contentment, and I found myself getting lost in those soft golden eyes once more.

We moved together for a few moments, and then she looked up at me and said, "Not so bad."

I chuckled. "Not so bad for an old guy," I added on.

Angel smiled warmly up at me.

"You're not so old. Besides, I'm probably much older than you are for all we know," she corrected, and then she slid her arms up around my neck to dance closer to me.

I found myself smiling back, partly because I wondered what she'd say if she knew my real age, and partly because I was enjoying myself there with her. I had not felt this way for a very long, long, time.

"I've never been one for fast dancing… until you forced me to tonight," I joked, keeping the easy conversation between us going.

Angel made a show of tilting her eyes upward, as if she were having a deep thought.

"Well, of the two of us, I am the stronger," she finally said in a mock serious tone. "I suppose its only right that I have my way when I want it."

"Oh?" I asked, delighted with her playfulness. "So you're sort of Machiavellian, and believe _might_ makes _right_?"

"Yes, definitely," she replied slyly. I was vaguely aware that one of her hands was playing lightly with my ponytail behind my neck. "But I think I could get my way by using other methods besides force."

"Really?" I inquired, with a tiny hint of challenge in my tone. Even being only half vampire, I still at times had the tendency to respond to dares in the same manner that full bloods did, even though it sometimes got me in trouble. "And what would they be, pray tell?" I asked, with a playful hint of mock distain.

She paused in the dance at that moment, locking gazes with me, her dancing eyes suddenly going very serious.

"This," she said, in barely a whisper.

I can't remember if she pulled me down toward her, or herself up to me. All I do remember is the feeling of her cool lips pressed against mine, and the sweet smell and taste of her filling me.

I would have thought one of us would have pulled away within a few seconds at the unexpected shock of what was happening.

I for one found I really had no desire for it to end, or the will power to end it myself, and was pleased when Angel set herself tightly against me so she could continue the kiss in comfort.

Instead of fading it grew more intense, and soon our tongues began to explore each other as well.

It ended only when our actions became so inflamed, that Angel took control and forced herself to break the kiss by palming both sides of my jaw and pulling away.

For someone who didn't need to breathe, she seemed strangely out of breath at the moment as she set her forehead against mine.

Too be fair, my own breathing wasn't much calmer.

"My teeth," she reminded me in what might have been a slightly embarrassed tone a few seconds later. "You have to be careful."

I almost blurted out that mine weren't very safe for her either, but I caught myself as I remember she still didn't know what I was.

"I will," I promised instead.

She nodded a few times, and keeping her head pressed to mine asked, "Is this wrong?"

The fact she wouldn't meet my eyes told me she was just as stunned as I was.

"I don't know," I finally replied. "But right now, I don't feel like complaining much."

She lifted her head to look at me then.

"Good, neither will I then," she added, and then lowered her head to my chest and began to slowly sway in place with me, even though the music had turned back to a fast song sometime during our kiss.

People moved all around us, but gave us our space in peace.

I held her tight as we rocked each other, not caring as the rest of the world swept by us at its faster pace.


	16. Chapter 15: In the arms of an Angel

Chapter Fifteen: In the arms of an Angel

"_**You are pulled from the wreckage  
Of your silent reverie  
You're in the arms of the angel  
May you find some comfort there."**_

The water had just reached the perfect temperature, when I stepped into my shower stall to wash away the night's accumulated smell of stale beer and smoke from the club. I indulged in neither of those vices, but no matter how nice the venue, at the end of the shows I always seem to smell as if I did.

The consequential hazards of being a professional musician who makes a living playing nightclubs I suppose.

Normally because of my slightly better-than-human heightened senses, I was always looking forward to cleaning the barroom reek from me after every gig, but unfortunately the soap and water was also taking away the scent of Angel that still also clung to me.

Even over the offending other scents, I could plainly pick out hers still adhering to me.

The night had turned out to be something I never expected. Nothing disastrous had befallen us despite the reservations I originally had about taking Angel out in public, and slow dancing with her had been like a dream… a dream I hadn't realized was possible until I tripped and fell into it.

I could still almost feel the exquisite pressure of her slim body pressed up against mine even now.

The way she would gaze up into my eyes was almost too overwhelming to bear, and she hadn't once used her vampire glamour on me. Not that it would have worked if she had, as I already mentioned.

Everything she sent my way was honestly her and her alone. The look she gave me all night was surpassed only by the way she gently tilted her head up to mine each time she kissed me. I would have thought that nothing could have topped that first kiss we shared, but each following one was better than the one before it.

I hadn't even cared who around us was watching. For all that it mattered, we were totally alone on the dance floor.

No one else existed in the world but us for most of the night it seemed.

Even the ride home was like something for a movie. We didn't really even talk much during the trip. We simply held hands, her cool one in my only slightly warmer one, and occasionally exchanged glances and smiles. Neither of us felt the need for words, and it seemed perfectly right and natural.

I can't remember when the last time was that I had such a night?

Once we arrived back home, it seemed I still didn't want to be parted from her, or she from me. Even for the short time it would take to clean up and change. However, the overwhelming smell of cheap beer on both of us won out, and we both headed for separate bathrooms after one last kiss.

I was so lost in reliving those few wonderful hours with Angel in the nightclub that I failed to notice anything else around me until the door to the shower stall slowly swung opened.

Stuck in my recent memories, my reactions were beyond simply slow; they were practically nonexistent. I turned as I reluctantly came out of my pleasant daydream, to find Angel standing there in the stall doorway, even more beautiful in her pale nakedness.

I should have been appalled by my lack of awareness and with letting someone get the drop on me like that. I should have been disturbed by my lack of defensive reaction. I should have been stunned finding her there in her unclothed condition.

Instead, I was just simply amazed.

"Is there room for one more?" she asked almost shyly.

I was still totally speechless at the sight of her, so answering was out of the question. Angel took my silence as permission and joined me in the small stall, closing the door behind her as she did.

The running water quickly soaked and matted her short spiky hair tightly to her skull as she stepped under the spray with me, making the elfin features of her face more prominent.

She moved closer to me, her hands came to rest lightly on my chest. She glanced up at me one last time to see if I was going to protest her being there.

There was little to no chance of that happening at the moment.

I'm glad she didn't speak further; I wouldn't have known what to say in reply at that instant anyway. And I was positive if I did attempt to speak, what would come out of my mouth wouldn't be intelligent in any sense of the word.

Instead, she saved me from making a fool of myself by sliding her arms up around my neck, and then pulled herself up to kiss me once again.

My own arms somehow found their way around her slim, and now slippery, waist… and I pressed her tightly to me. I wanted the kiss to go on forever, as I had never tasted anything so sweet as her lips, or felt anything so wonderful in my arms.

Her tongue eventually found its way into my mouth, and I responded in kind to start an enjoyable fencing match with her. She gasped a few moments later as her common sense prevailed, and pulled back slightly when she felt I was pressing too deep, fearing that I might cut myself on her dangerous teeth.

I'm not ashamed to say I took unfair advantage of her concern. I cradled her head in my arm and deliberately probed even deeper, forcing her to open her mouth wider to keep her teeth away. I pressed my attack and overwhelmed her, leaving her lightly moaning but still game to keep going.

The shower concept was soon all but forgotten, and before I knew it I had picked her up and pinned her against the tiled shower walls. I was stronger than a normal human male, and her slightly heavier vampire weight meant nothing to me at the moment. I should have been more careful least she noticed I was stronger than I should have been, but at the moment caution was the very last thing on my mind.

Luckily for me, her mind was elsewhere at the moment also.

She responded to my pinning her by throwing her legs around my waist, and locking them there. I felt a tiny smile grace my lips because I knew she could crush me in an instant if she wanted to, but her legs held me firmly, trapping me just as decisively as I had trapped her against the shower wall.

Her small hands were twisted up in my long wet hair as she kissed me with rising fever, and I couldn't have cared less is she were ripping out great handfuls of it at the moment.

Her lithe body molded to mine, and we were more than poised and positioned to take things to the next level

A few seconds later, she briefly broke our fevered kiss and pressed her cheek to mine.

"Take me!" she hissed desperately into my ear.

As soon as she made the heated demand my fangs started to slide into place. I clamped my mouth tightly shut, and buried my face in the hollow of her shoulder and neck in response.

That was probably a mistake on my part, because even wet, her skin smelled so sweet and inviting. My fangs locked, and I ached to open my mouth and plunge them into her marble flesh.

"Take me now," she repeated, her arms sliding down my soaked back to press herself tighter to me in her desire.

And I wanted to without a doubt. I wanted very badly to take her in every way, and not just in the carnal sense either. It had been a long time since I had any sort of this type of female company, but I had never before _ever_ wanted to bite somebody, like I wanted to bite Angel at the moment.

She writhed against me, her neck stretching out invitingly against my cheek. My mouth opened involuntarily and I burned to bury my fangs there. To taste her, because I knew her essence would be so much better than even her scent promised.

I shivered as the tips of my canine teeth lightly brushed her ivory skin of her throat.

"Please," Angel murmured, unaware of what was happening. "Make love to me," she asked.

But there was something in her open need that said she had nothing but total trust in me.

And I hadn't been totally honest with her about what I was… and look where it had gotten me, look at what I was about to do to her.

I clenched my jaws together again, even tighter than before. My eyes I squeezed shut even tighter still, as if not being able to see her might help. I also stopped breathing for the moment, because if I kept inhaling her scent, I was sure I would snap and tip over that edge, and into doing something savage.

So there we were. A little pressure from either of us and we would have been joined in the most intimate of ways for humans and vampires both.

And if that happened, I was positive I was going to give in to my longing to bite her.

I couldn't bring myself to let it happen, knowing what I was keeping from her… and especially knowing what else I desired to do to her.

If we were to ever make love, she would have to know everything about me first, to hear everything I was holding back and hiding from her, to know what I couldn't help but want to do to her.

There could be no other way for this to be right, because she trusted me.

It should be no other way!

That cold realization made my lust for her cool just enough for me to get my fangs back under control.

As a result of my unexpected inner struggle, I had paused too long at that very critical moment, and I'm sure the sudden tension in my body plainly gave me away to her.

She suddenly froze in my arms, and when I could finally look back up at her without revealing a mouthful of long teeth, her head slowly lowered until her forehead was resting on my chin.

"You don't want me," she finally said, misunderstanding giving her voice a deep tone of despondency.

The hurt in her voice was like a knife, cutting through my flesh and stabbing into my slow-beating heart.

"Its not that," I countered as quickly as I could, while she unwrapped her legs from around me and I set her back on the floor again, though I still kept a hold of her waist so she couldn't turn away from me.

I didn't want her to think I was rejecting her, never that!

"Then why not?" she wanted to know. She still wouldn't look at me, and her voice I could barely hear above the spray and fall of the water.

"Because…" was all I could get out for a moment. I did reach up then to touch the side of her cheek, urgently hoping to find the words that escaped me with a gesture and touch instead.

She looked up at me then.

"Is it because I'm a vampire? And you're afraid of me still?"

"No!" I protested. "Its not that. That doesn't matter to me anymore. I don't see a vampire, I only see you! Oh god, Angel, I want to! Believe me, I want to very badly!"

"If we make love, I'm sure I can be gentle with you, I promise," she added. It was then that I realized she thought maybe I was afraid she'd accidentally hurt me with her greater strength if passion made her careless. I'm not vampire indestructible, but I can still take a beating fairly well from one if I had too, my past has numerous episodes of that as proof.

As long as Angel didn't purposely try and rip any limbs off, I was reasonably sure I could handle any love making with her… and any bruise or broken bone would be a small price to pay for being with her.

I could handle anything she or a physical relationship with her could throw at me… except for the part with me wanting to bite her that is.

And the lies I had to tell her.

"Its not that," I told her. "The thought you could hurt me never even crossed my mind. I know you'd never purposely harm me."

She shook her head, still not comprehending the trouble I was having in the slightest.

"Well… I want to be with you like that, so please tell me why."

"It's," I said, "Its more because I'm feeling it wouldn't be right until you knew who you were." That actually was a good part of the reason I was hesitating as I said. The other more concerning parts being I was feeling guilty for not coming clean with her about who I was, and that I wanted to bite her for some unknown reason… but I wasn't going to admit those little details to her at the moment.

I was pretty sure that the one was going to piss her off, and the other would freak her out. Two things you don't want to do when you're explaining to a woman, vampire or human, why you're wavering about getting intimate with her.

"I feel like I'd be taking advantage of you if we made love right now. I'd want you to be sure of who you are… and sure it was that you, the real you… that wanted to be with me. And I want to be sure you know the real me before we go that far."

"I think at this point I'm sure I want to be with you," she said with a weak smile.

"I'm sure you are. But for me… I guess underneath it all," I added. "It would all seem fake to me otherwise. I'd always being wondering would you have wanted me if you were well? And I find that I really don't want it to be that way with you. I don't think… I could take it if it all turned out not to be real. Does that make any sense to you?"

"No," she said at first almost miserably, but then shook her head a moment later. "Yeah, I guess it does in some weird way."

"Yeah, weird enough that you can be certain I'll be kicking myself later for blowing the chance," I said. "I hope that makes you feel a little better."

That comment did made her smile a bit, which is what I was trying for, and I'm sure she was having a mental picture of me actually kicking myself for screwing my big chance up, but she didn't say anything more for the moment.

"Just so you know that… you've become important enough to me that I want _everything_ to be right between us before we go to that next step." I unconsciously stressed the word 'everything' to include what I was holding back from her in the deal. But of course if she caught it, it meant little to her at the time.

She did smile up at me after that.

"Well… since you put it that way. You might get another chance sometime," she told me. "Maybe, if I'm feeling generous to a dimwitted male with serious ethical issues."

I returned the smile, grateful to be off that hook, glad that I had not given in to the urge to sink my teeth into Angel's neck, and cursing myself for being so stupid not to bed her, all at the exact same time.

Hey, I am a guy after all… just a dumb one with rotten luck and pesky morals sometimes… and a whole lot of bad timing in my personal life.

I lifted both her hands to my lips and kissed them.

"That's all I can hope for," I replied. "When you're better and you're sure you still want me… and the time is right for us."

"When the time is right," she agreed, and then gave me one of her heart stopping smiles.

Then she pulled my hands toward her and returned the kiss, before wrapping her arms around me and laying her head on my chest.

"Thank you," she suddenly said.

"For what?" I asked in bewilderment. "Being a prude and a kill joy?" I added in slight jest.

"No," she replied. "For thinking of me first and not your own… _desires_."

"Oh?" I answered dumbly. "You're welcome, I guess."

She snorted at my obviously lack of conviction in what I just said, thinking it was part of me attempting to be amusing again

"Stop it!" she said lightly, with a slight slap on my lower back. "You know you're a good man."

Now, I felt really dishonest about what I was holding back from her.

She cocked her head up a moment later, and regarded me for a few seconds.

"So, seeing you got me all riled up, can you give a girl a break and at least do one little thing for me tonight?"

"What's that?" I asked, wondering if I dodged a bullet to walk into a cannon shell instead.

She grinned sharply and firmly gripped both my hands in hers, as if I might run away, then smiled like a schoolgirl in the next instant.

"Nothing bad," she said as if reading my mind. "I liked being in your arms tonight, it felt good… and safe. And I was wondering if you'd stay with me tonight… in the same bed."

I blinked, wondering where this was going. I had thought we had just worked this all out?

"I want you to hold me, silly!" she said when I wasn't quite getting the picture. "Men just don't get that cuddling can be as nice as sex. Sometimes better."

"Oh!" I muttered in surprise. No, us men most times don't get that, especially about the cuddling being better than sex part.

Like most women, Angel was more complicated and thought on many levels compared to the one or two myself and most men thought on.

And the idea of me… _cuddling_ with a vampire? Certainly not an everyday occurrence, and a far cry from normal in my life up till this date. This was taking the phrase 'sleeping with the enemy' to a whole new level entirely. But with this particular vampire… yeah, I could go for that idea very much at this point.

And not have to suffer any guilt as a result, as long as I didn't end up biting.

That would be hard to explain to her at this juncture.

"Yes," I answered. "I think I would like that. I would like that very much." I had meant that to come out in a suave and smooth tone, instead it came out as if I could barely breathe… in little more than a whisper actually.

Angel didn't seem to notice or care. She smiled back at me once more, and I found that I would walk through the fires of Hades itself for that smile. My vampire girl actually looked content with the compromised.

Yeah… I was going to be kicking myself for a long time to come.

We continued with the shower after that, and thankfully I had a higher capacity water heater in the basement. We helped each other probably a little more than actually was necessary. Exploring as we wished, and stealing little kisses here and there that didn't go too far.

It was still a good night, even with the little setbacks… and the self-kicking.

We settled on spending the night together in my bedroom because it had the larger bed. Neither one of us bothered with putting on clothing after the shower, as we were both more than comfortable with each other by that point.

And well, Angel au naturel was something to behold.

We talked for a while; Angel curled up next to me while her cool finger idly traced scars on my body. My half-vampire metabolism wasn't a free ticket to eternal physical perfection like hers was; some wounds were deep enough to never heal as spotlessly as a full vampire's would.

Luckily most of them were from various weapons or traps that had been set for me over the years. More than a few however were obviously bite wounds if you were to examine them close enough. The more venom injected into my flesh during a bite, I had discovered the hard way, the more likely it was to leave a disfigurement in the end.

Unlike Angel's marble beauty, my body was a marred roadmap of scars, acquired over nearly half a century of battling her kind. I felt slightly obscene lying next to her for more than just appearance reasons. Every time she asked a curious question about a mark she'd found, I told her a lie… and they came much to easily to my lips to suit me.

With every falsehood I told her, I felt the hole I was in getting deeper and deeper.

I was glad however when Angel didn't seem to question my answers too deeply. In fact, I was even more thankful when she didn't question some of them at all. Selfishly, I hadn't wanted anything to ruin the magic that was left of this night. Honesty and reality would have to wait for another time… and hopefully that moment would be a long way away.

Angel was probably as overwhelmed with the sudden new direction our relationship had taken as I was at the moment, and it just hadn't occurred to her to inquire about my answers much further for the moment with all that was on her mind.

When she grew tired and could no longer keep her eyes open, she rolled over and wiggled backward, until her back pressed up against my chest, and then drew my arms tightly around her slim body like a blanket.

"You smell good," she murmured as she settled into my arms.

I knew that most humans would have found her body hard as stone and disturbingly cold. With me being neither fully human or vampire, I found Angel's body to merely be cool and no more firm than say a well-muscled bodybuilder's body would be.

And she did have one of the sexiest backs I've ever seen or curled up with.

Remember! I'm still a guy and only half-dead. I still have my personal preferences about certain parts of the female form just as any other normal male would.

Soon Angel had stopped even her simulated breathing and I already knew from prior experience that she wouldn't remain motionless for the rest of the night like a movie vamp.

I was a little surprised to find during the night, just how aware Angel was of my presence in the bed with her.

Instead of the little minor adjustments she made when she fell asleep on the couch with me, whenever I rolled over or adjusted my position in bed, Angel followed me just as any human woman might. Always working herself back to snuggle herself next to me again no matter how far away I traveled from her.

Even though she had no heartbeat or cadence of breath to tune in on, I was very aware of her also. It was the most peaceful night of sleep I could remember having since I had last been with my beloved Stephanie.

In the morning, I would no doubt trouble myself with thoughts about if this was a wise idea or not.

Tonight, I found I didn't care.

Tonight I slept in the arms of an angel.


	17. Chapter 16

Chapter Sixteen: Heavy Metal – Takin' A Ride

_Fire it on up and let's cruise a while,  
Leave your troubles far behind.  
You can hedge your bet on a clean Corvette,  
To get you there right on time.  
Now if you're ready to dive into overdrive,  
Baby the green lights are on.  
It's like you're running your brain on some high  
octane,  
Every time she reaches fully blown__._

I awoke to find the other side of the bed empty.

I turned over to check the glowing LED numbers on the alarm clock, only to discover it was a quarter to six in the morning.

Immediately I wondered where Angel had gone? I paused a moment, letting my senses search the house and they found nothing out of the ordinary. The refrigerator still hummed lowly in the kitchen, the hot water pipes in the basement by the stairs still tinged and popped once in a while. And occasionally I could hear the slight ticking of water drops coming from the attic, reminding me I was going to have to go up on the roof and look at the shingles… or call the landlord to do it.

That all didn't mean much, because I'd already knew that Angel could be more silent than a mouse in a room full of sleeping cats if she wanted to be.

There being no other way to get answers to her whereabouts, I kicked the light sheet off of me and rose to throw on a pair of jeans. Bare footed and shirtless, I left the bedroom to begin my curious search of the house.

The living room, dinning room, and the spare bedroom all yielded nil results. I entered the kitchen last because it was furthest from the bedrooms, and didn't find her there either.

I scratched my head in bewilderment, wondering where she could have gotten. I almost left the kitchen but at the last moment noticed a light shining through the cracks of the partially opened doorway to the garage.

I had a quick sense of relief, as I was beginning to consider she might be in the basement, and I didn't want her stumbling across the storeroom down there, and what it contained.

The garage wasn't so bad, even the attached workshop was fairly innocent in what I kept there.

I padded silently to the doorway on bare feet, and now I was able to make out slight sounds of movement coming from there.

I opened the door on quiet hinges and step inside.

The garage was fairly large, it would hold two large vehicles with plenty of room to spare, which was one of the reasons I chose to rent the place.

In the far bay, normally under a heavy drop cloth, sat one of my few pride and joys that rivaled even my Zon bass. I found Angel standing before it, wearing only an old t-shirt of mine that came down to barely mid-thigh on her. She had pulled the cover off what she found there, and was standing in front of the machine in a pose that should have been provocative with the way it showed off her pale legs. However the way she ran her hands over the sleek hood, it seems she was in some sort of Holy Communion with the mechanical work of art.

"It's beautiful," she said without even turning to look in my direction. I'd had no doubt that she knew I was there as soon as I entered the kitchen searching for her. "What it is?" she asked, the familiar machine probably was lost to her memory.

"It's a 1973 Corvette Stingray," I filled in for her.

She turned to me then and smiled.

"Its great," she told me. "Its almost like I can feel its power even just sitting here. Why don't you drive it?" she wanted to know next.

I shrugged in answer. "I just don't… much," I replied.

The car was on the road and legal to drive, but the actual fact of the matter is that I came by the machine through nefarious means really.

Prior to coming into my hands, it had belonged to a fellow who made his living as a pimp running prostitutes back in the early 1970's. This fellow made the mistake of trying to recruit the runway 16-year-old daughter of a human acquaintance of mine. I say acquaintance now, but back then I was still fooling myself that I could blend into human society, and had called this man and his family friends – even if I knew we weren't what could be called close ones.

After tracking down my _friend's_ daughter – for a price of course, because this was business – I extracted her from the situation and warned the pimp in no uncertain terms to stay away from her and her family. I'd left the man relatively unharmed and returned the girl to her father and collected my bounty.

During that time, I'd occasionally made my living as a sort of _fixer_ of people's problems, seeing I wasn't hunting vampires anymore… and to tell you the truth I need something to do with myself more than I needed an income. I was as relatively well off then, as I am today actually. I had time and most of the strengths of a vampire, so why not do something constructive with it?

Besides, once you got use to the adrenalin rush of living on the edge, it was hard to just quit cold turkey. Something had to take its place or you'd go stir-crazy from the boredom… and maybe from having too much time on your hands to think about all the things you've done.

And after 50 years of having what I believed was a worthy goal, and a reason to keep going on, I needed the distraction… desperately.

My friendly warning either didn't take with the pimp… or perhaps it was he lacked imagination, or he was just a really stupid man. He made the mistake of tracking the daughter down and showing up at the father's home, looking to take the girl back. He never got the girl, but he beat the father something fierce.

A phone call later, and I was back looking for the pimp. Considering he drove a brand new, fire-engine-red Corvette, he wasn't all that hard to find. I caught up to him in a back room of a pool hall, just off the street he ran his girls from, and administered a beating that was tenfold worse than the one he had given the girl's father.

Unfortunately for him I had forgotten just how fragile humans were. My half-vampire strength left him with a shattered lower spine, meaning he would be a paraplegic for the rest of his days. Not that I originally planned on him having many more days left.

I had in fact started out meaning to kill him in the end, mostly because he pissed me off with making me having to come back there.

And because in those days… I wasn't really above committing a human murder if it was for a good cause. My life fighting and killing vampires had left me brutal and detached from what was left of my humanity, and with not much at all in the way of a sense of mercy.

Instead of becoming a better man right away after learning my mistake with slaying any vampire that crossed my path, I seemed to slide down hill for a short time, and became even worse because of it.

Just about as I was about to deliver the _coup de grace_ to the prostitute runner, he begged for what was left of his life. And when I laughed maliciously at his plea and it looked like I wasn't inclined to be merciful, he offered me the car if I would spare him.

I paused then for some reason, and figured why not?

It wasn't so much the bribe, as I could have taken the car anyway. When I was finished, he certainly wasn't going to have further use for it anyway.

It simply struck me, more in a sinister way, that leaving him alive as he was might actually be the crueler punishment.

He wasn't much of a threat now to anyone, and I was sure this time I'd just taught him the meaning of fear and hell. So I let him go after he signed the car over and gave me the keys.

It was shortly after that, that I began to really reflect back and thought about what I was doing… and I realized I was not liking the person I was becoming very much. I was trading one hateful rationale for continuing to live for another, instead of trying to make myself better.

To be someone maybe I could eventually live with.

Today, I do feel a little guilty about leaving the pimp there like that, as he was calling to me as I walked away, asking for me to send him help.

At the time I just laughed, and told him his call girls would take care of him.

The look of fear in his eyes returned then, and I considered that maybe his past treatment of them would not have earned him any tender loving care from his stable.

I really wasn't much of a nice person back then, as I said.

It wasn't my problem in my view – he was getting what he deserved, and I drove away in a new car and never heard of the pimp again.

Over the years, I considered my actions that day were probably what really kept me from driving the Vette much.

Within a week, I had the car painted from the bright red to the glossy black it still is today. I had it tuned-up by a professional and restored to mint condition, and over the years its been stored on and off, as I still also have this odd feeling that if I were to be pulled over that it just might come back stolen. It's a silly thought really, as its been registered under several of my assumed names and there's never once been a problem with it coming up hot anywhere.

I guess it's just the remains of a guilty conscious for having been so mercenary back then, that keeps me from enjoying the Vette as much as I would like to.

"It's a shame its just sitting here all covered up," Angel was saying, almost like she was reading my mind. "We should take it out sometime."

"Maybe," I said, with a smile. I could see she wanted nothing more than to be in the Vette.

She turned back to car and look longingly at it. "I don't see why you drive that rust-heap Ford when you have this sitting here?"

It was my turned to smile big.

"Because I can't fit all my band gear into the glove box size trunk the Corvette has. Its not very practical."

Her eyebrows shot up, because that was something she hadn't considered.

"Okay, you got a point there," she agreed. Something else in the garage caught her attention, and she pointed at another covered mount sitting behind the Corvette. "What's under there?" she wanted to know.

"Just a couple of motorcycles," I told her.

Her eyes shot open wider.

"You got motorcycles!" she exclaimed.

"Yeah, I use to ride a lot, not so much here with the weather here though," I answered, as I came over to stand beside her.

She turned to me with vampire quickness, which meant she was a blur even to my eyes. The fact that she was forgetting herself gave me a gage to her level of excitement.

"We _have_ to go out on those too!" she nearly squealed in delight.

Her exhilaration was contagious, and I laughed lightly, smiling a smile that maybe was the first true one I'd had in years. She was laughing with me, a bright twinkle in her gold eyes.

I reached out to place both my hands on her hips, and she let me lift her up and place her on the hood of the Corvette. When she was seated I moved in to stand between her knees and leaned in close to her.

Even in the grease and machine smell of the garage, her scent was fresh, clean, and strong, as if there were anything in the world that could cover it up!

I moved in until our foreheads almost touched, and she lightly smiled back up at me, waiting and not minding that I had her pinned between the car and myself.

"You seem to have a need for speed," I said, picking the phrase out from some movie I had once seen years ago somewhere.

Angel grinned infectiously. "You say that like it's a bad thing,"

"That depends on who's driving," I said.

Her grin grew wider. I could see in her eyes, she was picturing herself behind the wheel… and I wasn't sure if that was a good idea or not… probably not.

"So? Can we go sometime?" she asked again. I was relieved that she hadn't asked to drive… yet anyway.

"Anything you want," I told her in a husky tone.

Her face grew even brighter with delight, and she gracefully tilted her lips up to mine and then slid her arms around my neck.

That kiss was the sweetest one yet.

The next three days were peacefully uneventful, and I was glad that Angel was letting the matter about the Corvette lay for the moment.

It probably helped distract her that the band had a special benefit show coming up that Wednesday night that she was looking forward to. I had been slightly worried about that particular gig, because that was one Ricky would not have been able to cover for me. Had things not gone as well with Angel as they had, we probably would have had to cancel the show.

While Donny might be a dunce in most fractions of life, he was compassionate enough to see that the band donated their time for special causes whenever asked. I guess every human has some redeeming value about him or her, though sometimes I wasn't too sure about our lead guitarist.

This benefit was going to help one of our long-time regular fans, whose brother was fighting cancer and needed help paying medical bills. And it even made me feel good to learn that most of our following had bought tickets to the show, even if it was in the middle of the workweek.

We all arrived at the rented hall at 5:00pm to set-up for the 7:00pm show. After the stage was set, I was surprised to see Angel running around like a dervish, organizing people and table settings. Minutes later she was helping out selling drawing tickets one minute, then selling benefit t-shirts the next.

People seemed to defer to her naturally, asking for her judgment or opinions on one thing or another. When Angel manned a booth or table, most people, especially men, couldn't seem to be able to say 'no' to her when she asked them to buy something.

She seemed to be everywhere at once, and I hoped that she remembered in her excitement not to slip up and move at a speed that obviously wasn't human.

No one seemed to mark anything odd about her or be alarmed in any fashion, so I chalked up my slight nervousness at the vampire girl's seemingly miraculous activities to the fact that I had my own tasks to do, so I couldn't possibly watch her every single second.

It was only an illusion that it appeared to me that she was everywhere at once because I could only afford to look up every few minutes or so.

Tonight, I felt it was perfectly safe for me to play the entire gig, even if it meant I wouldn't get a chance to sit out and slow dance with Angel, which was a downside.

During the first set, we dragged out Paramore's _'Decode'_. I always thought it was a little on the dramatic side, even if the bass line was sort of thrashy, but the female fans seemed to love it. Including Angel, who stood before me in the crowd and sang the lyrics to me.

I was always a big Collective Soul fan, and enjoyed it a little more when we went into _'Tremble for my Beloved'_, which was a tune not a lot of bands covered.

During the second set, fans that were at last Saturday's show, of course started chanting for Angel to come up and sit in on the vocals for _Broken_ with us again.

She good naturally attempted to beg off, only to have Kim dash into the crowd and drag her up on stage. I smiled to myself, knowing that had Angel been serious about not wanting to come up, Kim would not have been able to move her the slightest bit of an inch.

The song went off just as perfectly as it did the first time, and I couldn't help but feel connected to this girl on a whole new level again.

Angel was fairly happy with herself on the way home that night. And surprisingly it was more for the work she did helping out during the benefit, than for her time singing.

The benefit had cleared just a little over seven thousand dollars all together, which was a new record as far as donated shows went for the band.

I had to admit, Angel presence probably made a difference. Even the normally stingiest of fans opened their purses and wallets when Angel came around.

She smiled at me from the passenger seat of the Explorer as we drove home.

"Lets do something special," she suddenly said.

"What do you have in mind?" I asked.

She clasped my hand tighter in her cool one. "I want to go out to dinner."

I felt my brow crinkle in bewilderment at the odd request.

"But you don't eat," I put in.

"So," she said. "I can fake it now. And I want to do something normal… like other people do for a change."

I looked over at her. "Are you sure you want to try this?"

"Yeah, it'll be fun."

I half-shrugged. I no longer had a fear that she'd lose control and attack anyone.

"Okay," I told her.

"Good," she replied with a warm smile. Then she turned back to look out the windshield, contently humming the tune to _'Decode'_ to herself I realized.


	18. Chapter 17

Chapter Seventeen: Vengeance… thy name is rogue.

Theodore "Big T" Parole looked up as the door to the dingy office door creaked open. The two Rogue vampires walked in without knocking, but he had heard them as soon as they entered the old loading dock door when they first arrived, so they knew he was expecting them shortly.

"Did you distribute them?" he asked without preamble, as he leaned back in his chair.

The vampire in the lead was a brick wall of a tattooed man, an ex-skinhead before the change, who went by the single name of Max.

"Yeah, Boss. We got them put up all within a fifteen-block radius of Jackson Street and Rainier Avenue. I sent the rest of the troops out with more of them, by this time tomorrow night, the entire Westside of the city will be covered with them."

"Did you have enough of her blood to go around?" Big T asked next.

"Sure. The nipper here…" Max said with a jerk of his thumb over his massive shoulder at the skinny Asian vampire that had came in with him. "Went back to the ambush site after we found Carl and collected every drop he could. I'm not sure how much of it he scavenged for himself, but we had enough left over."

The Asian Rogue bared his teeth at the insinuation and hissed evilly at the bigger man. The worse insult for a Rogue was to be referred to as a scavenger – a feeder of cold blood – blood that touched the ground or blood that hadn't come directly from the body of prey.

Parole frowned in disapproval.

"Max, I've spoken to you before about proper courtesy for your pack mates. We are far more than just a simple coven. Bigotry causes discord, and discord inside the pack makes it weak. You left those human tendencies behind when you crossed over, now apologize to Kenji for your indiscretion."

"Sorry, Boss. Old habits are hard to break," Max told his coven leader. He then turned to glance over his shoulder. "Sorry, Kenji," he added, though the smirk he was wearing made it obvious his apology was less than sincere.

Kenji Obata grimaced, knowing that was as good as he was going to get from the bald-headed Rogue vampire. He took some small consolation in that fact that the big goon hadn't purposely mispronounced his name this time so that it came out as "Benji"… which Max did quite often.

"See that you do break them… soon," Big T added coldly. "Or I'll break them for you."

This time Max swallowed hard and looked a little bit fearful. Parole had made him, and he could unmake him at anytime… permanently!

"Sure thing, Boss," the skinhead assured him again.

Theodore nodded, satisfied that he made his point for the moment. Max was one of his more useful line people, but he could be a pain in the ass the way he rubbed vampires that weren't Caucasian the wrong way.

"What else do you have for me?"

Max paused to clear his throat before speaking.

"I wanted to talk to you about Harley."

"What about him?" Parole inquired.

"He's pitching a fit about the posters. Even though the Big Man gave us permission and has all his crews looking for the girl. Harley thinks it should only be the pack that tracks the bitch down and caps her. He's griping that the order should at least read she should be captured alive and turned over to us too."

"I see," Big T replied. "That would be preferable of course – for our old life, but not very expedient to insist upon in this one. I had thought we had this matter settled, but it appears Mr. Dobbins has had a slight change of heart. I will speak to him again, and make him understand that we are no longer on the road, and can no longer observe the luxury of a blood vendetta. As long as the girl pays for her crime, it matters not who collects the debt in the end. We have more serious obligations, here to our new home, and to our patron. That of course, comes first above all else now."

Max shrugged his big shoulders.

"That's what I tried to tell him, that he needs to see the big picture. But he ends up pulling rank on me and goes on about how it was in the old days."

"I will see to it. Continue as we planned," Big T ordered. He hated having to run this balancing act between the old ways the pack once lived by, and the new path he was trying to build for his coven of hunters. "Is there anything else?" Parole wanted to know.

Max perked up, as he recalled something.

"Oh! I almost forgot with this Harley thing on my mind," he said. "We brought you a present."

Big T narrowed his eyes for a moment.

"And what might that be?"

Max broke into a cruel leer.

"While we were posting our turf, we ran across a outsider dress up as a hooker and trolling for humans down off South King Street. We snuck up and jacked her, broke her neck just above the shoulder blades. Wrapped her up in some chains and tossed her into a 55-gallon drum to slow down the healing."

Big T nodded, understanding the concept, as they'd long ago discovered that placing the contorted and broken bodies of prey vamps into the drums kept them from fully recovering, until they were released. It was the best way to keep a backup food source readily on hand. And the steel drums made them easy to store and transport.

"She looks young and strong, about 18 or so," Max continued on, "So we brought her back for you, seeing we knew you were going to be busy here, and wouldn't be getting out to hunt tonight. Got her in the back of the van right now."

Theodore Parole's face molded itself into that big smile that made both human and vampire victims shutter when they saw it.

"Max, occasionally I wonder why I keep you around… and then you remind me why by doing something solicitous like this. How long as it been since you broke her neck?"

The skinhead pursed his lips and he thought. "About an hour, maybe a little less?"

Big T showed a toothy grin now.

"Excellent! She should just about be almost healed by now," he said. "Bring the little dear in. I think I'll let her fully recover and then run around the docks for a little while before I take her. You know the blood tastes better when they fight and run."

Both the other Rogues chuckled in agreement.

"And here I thought it was going to be another boring Wednesday night at the office," Parole added.


	19. Chapter 18

Chapter Eighteen: A Dream on Shadow's Wings

The agent for the Order of the Spear walked through the darken hallways of the mansion. It was one of several dozen the organization had acquired over the decades, and in fact it had been taken over only recently. His freshly polished shoes echoed off the floors as he approached what had once been the grand ballroom of the huge house.

Waiting for him inside, he knew he would find the Table of Masters, the governing body of his ever-growing coven.

As he had walked through the apparently deserted residence, he felt unseen eyes upon him, and knew very well the Table's unseen bodyguards were indeed watching him. Had he not the permission of the Masters to be there that night, he would have been killed the instant he set foot on the grounds, let alone made it all the way inside.

There was a reason the leaders of the coven moved their location from acquired building to building every few days randomly.

He made it to the set of huge exquisitely carved oak ballroom doors, and paused just a moment to straighten and brush at his designer suit in the weak light that peeked through the creaks in the doorway.

Once satisfied he was presentable, he placed both hands on the set of polished brass doorknobs and pressed them down to push both doors open. Before him, seated at a large dinner table that once might have seated close to twenty humans at a time, sat the seven Masters that governed the coven under the authority of the Sire. Three of the Masters were women, the other four were men, and all of them appeared to be of varying ages when they were turned. And each one was dressed in clothing of such quality that they made his suit look like rags in comparison. Behind the banquet table, hung from the far wall, was the standard of the coven embroidered on midnight black silk. Polaris hung bright, being consumed by marching flames on the banner.

"Arthur," the man in the exact center of the antique table greeted upon his entrance. He looked to be one of the youngest of the seven, barely in his twenties with close-cropped raven dark hair and goatee. But Arthur knew Christopher Manus was one of the oldest vampires in the coven, and the Sire's virtual right-hand and scion.

"My Lord," Arthur responded respectfully to Manus with a small bow of his head. "My Lords, my Ladies," he added with a bow in each direction of the table's wings for the other Masters seated there.

"What is the word from the Order?" asked a female Master named Lucille without further pleasantries.

Without pause, Arthur answered, glad that his news was good.

"All is in readiness as the Table has directed, Masters," he announced. The Order of Spear was the coven's leading arm; it paved the way for the coven to move into new territory, preparing it for take-over. Had his news not been pleasing to the Table, he alone would have borne the blunt of their wrath, as he was the Spear's chief leader. "We may commence with the final stage of the plan at your command."

"Excellent!" Manus said, leaning back in his chair to steeple his hands before him. He turned to each side to gaze at the others. "Then my peers… we are in agreement to began the final phase of the Sire's plans?"

Each of the vampire Masters at the table gave him an affirmative nod in turn.

"Very good," Manus announced, and then turned back to Arthur. "Mass the liege covens," he ordered the head of the Spear. "We began the move on Seattle in a fortnight."


	20. Chapter 19

Chapter Nineteen: Enter Sandman…

_Hush little baby, Don't say a word_

_And never mind that noise you heard_

_It just the beasts under your bed_

_In your closet, In your head_

My internal clock had always been fairly accurate, and it told me I had been asleep for little more than an hour of my nightly three-hour slumber Thursday night, when a piercing scream shattered the night.

Years of living the way I have had honed my reactions, and before I was totally awake I was sitting upright with the cool handle of the Banshee in my left hand.

I had taken to leaving the bush knife prop up against the wall next to what had become my side of the bed, and my hand had found it quite naturally without thought.

The scream was still fading in my ears as I finished my first scan of the room looking for an enemy. No cat burglar, or vampire for that matter, jumped out and attacked us. Once I realized we were alone I turned to check on Angel.

I discovered her sitting up straight in the bed next to me, the bed sheets pooled down around her waist. She was wearing an oversized nightshirt with the words "Hug Me" embroidered on the front along with a cartoonish bear with its arms wide open, and I could not see anywhere where she might have been injured.

Strangely, she didn't seem to notice my presence at all, or that she had just cried out. She sat there not moving in the slightest, not even drawing a single simulated breath.

She only stared unblinkingly at the bedroom doorway, in a manner that suggested she did not even see the wooden door at all.

"Angel?" I asked.

She ignored me, or plain just didn't hear me.

"Angel?" I said again more firmly, reaching over to touch her shoulder.

The girl was as hard and unmoving as a statue. I put more of my strength into a single shake of her shoulder, and she moved only because the mattress gave way under her.

I dropped the Banshee, sure I wasn't going to need it now, and was just about to use both hands to force her to look over and acknowledge me, when suddenly her head began to turn toward me.

She moved slowly. Slower than I think I've ever seen anyone move, vampire or human, but that might have been my imagination working overtime due to my worry for her.

Eventually her eyes came to bear on me, and I was shocked to find them pure black!

But not the black of vampire thirst. This black was dark and murky; they rolled like storm clouds under her long lashes.

"Angel?" I said for the third time. I had a feeling that she was seeing something, it just wasn't me.

Her head tilted just ever so slightly to the left.

"The burning star comes," she suddenly said. Her voice was eerily calm and level, but it had no hint at all of her personality in it.

That made the fine hair on the back of my neck stand up, filling me with apprehension for certain now.

"What do you mean?" I tried to keep my tone as level and emotionless as hers had been, so not to startle or scare her. I got the impression then that she must be dreaming. I could think of no other reasonable explanation for the strangeness.

Instead of answering me, her head slanted back level again and she now seemed to be regarding me for the first time for a moment, and I hoped that meant she was waking up.

"We… are all going to die," she suddenly said.

I felt my face twist into a look of shocked bewilderment at the statement. She had delivered it with that same peculiar calm tone.

Before I could ask what she talking about, her eyes drifted upward until they rolled up under the lids, leaving just the whites exposed. Angel's body went abruptly limp, as if she were a puppet that just had its strings cut. She swayed and began to slump over. I caught her around the shoulders and brought her to me.

Her faint only lasted a few seconds before her eyes fluttered back open, and I caught a glance of them to see they were that familiar tawny-brown once again.

The vampire girl seemed to come back to herself with a panicked cry, and then she buried her face in my chest and began to slightly shake.

"What was that?" I couldn't contain myself from asking.

"I don't know!" Angel cried, and I could now feel she was sobbing against me. Whatever had happened to her had scared her even worse than it had me.

It took several moments for Angel to calm down to the point where she could try and explain to me what she experienced.

"I don't remember most of it," she was saying, as she curled herself tighter against me. "All I can remember is there was these dark figures… and they were coming closer… and for some reason, I knew when they came close enough, I was going to die."

"A bad dream, maybe," I offered. "Maybe you were dreaming about the night I found you?"

"I don't know?" Angel said, almost miserably.

I asked her about the two things she had said to me, and neither of them were clear to her. Angel in fact couldn't remember saying them at all, let alone what they could mean.

She had been testing out human foods earlier that evening, practicing for our dinner date the next night. And even though she had held the food down for quite awhile before voiding it with seemingly no ill effects this time.

I considered that perhaps she was having a delayed reaction from the test.

Angel considered I might have had a point, but was reluctant to believe that could have caused the nightmare, though she couldn't say exactly why she had that hunch.

We shortly exhausted all the possible explanations we both could think of, and we ended up laying in bed for the next few hours, silently for the most part.

Angel had curled up next to me, idly playing with the fabric of my t-shirt while she lay there lost in her private thoughts.

I had my own thoughts about the matter. I knew little about injured vampires who lapsed into period of healing sleep other than what that old manuscript had told me or suggested. For all I knew, dreams and even occasional nightmares might be part of that healing process as the mind rewired itself, so to speak.

Or it might indicate that something else was seriously wrong. I had read the book several times over by then, and nowhere did it ever mention vampires having dreams.

The one thing that did keep picking away at my thoughts and concerning me was the last thing she had said in her trace-like state.

She had said, _"We… are all going to die."_

The way she said "We", I had the feeling she wasn't just speaking bout only herself and I. And I didn't have a clue why I should have that strange feeling… or who that _we_ might actually include.


	21. Chapter 20

Chapter Twenty:

When Friday came, it had started out uneventful, but gradually a bad feeling started to creep in on me as the day wore on. The feeling came and went, but toward evening it stayed longer and became stronger.

It nagged enough at me that it almost seemed a herald of things going down hill for us. After that strange nightmare Angel had experienced, I should have gone with my gut feeling, that it wasn't a wise idea for us to go out tonight… as illogical as that sounded to a normal reasoning mind.

Angel had still insisted that we not change our plans, and that we should go out tonight to dine and not let a little dream ruin our special plans.

I again pointed out that she didn't eat human food anyway so we could put it off until another time. She counter argued that since I _did_ need to eat regardless, that there wasn't any point for both of us to sit home every single night, and that going out to dinner would be a nice break in our daily routine.

And besides… I had already given my word and promised her.

Knowing I was beaten in this particular debate, we chose a moderately priced restaurant with a view of the lake and went out like normal couples do for a night… just like Angel wanted.

Angel also insisted that we dress for the occasion in our new clothes. I knew she was itching for a chance to wear some of the new outfits she purchased recently, but I also secretly suspected her real prime motive was to get me to wear that damned sports coat she bought me. She had diabolically gotten me to promise to the dinner date before she sprang that one little condition on me. Essentially being a man of another era – where a man's word was his bond – I was stuck after making her that pledge.

I had managed over the decades to adapt very well to the changing times and customs of society, but that one small personality quirk, I had never been totally successful at stamping out.

The next time I promised Angel anything, I'll be wise enough to ask to first read the fine print!

Once there and seated at the restaurant, and wearing my cursed new sports coat, I ordered the NY Strip Steak – rare, which was unusual for me because I had always preferred my steaks done well. Tonight however, the thought of one prepared that way made my mouth water, so I ordered it.

Given the odds things that have been happening to me since Angel's arrival, I didn't overly concern myself with the strange change in tastes, and merely chalked it up to my date's extraordinary effects on me.

And given the fact that the tiny vampire girl looked absolutely ravishing in her black silk dress, I had much more important things to focus my thoughts on at the moment.

Angel had ordered herself a plate of Angel Hair Pasta – the pun intended obviously by the way she had a small grin on her face for most of the dinner. I knew she was waiting for me to take the bait on her choice of dishes and make an attempt at some witty comment. I was just as equally sure that she had a snappy comeback just waiting to be sprung as soon as I did. However, I was still smarting slightly from being conned into wearing the dreaded sports jacket, so I wasn't about to play straight-man to her sense of humor… at least not right now and not without making her work for it.

So I innocently paid no heed to it and pretended total ignorance of the joke, though I did smile back at her across the table from time to time for purely other reasons. Soon, it became an unspoken contest between us as to who would break first, and either snicker at the silliness, or blurt out their thoughts on the matter.

I was determined to win and gain some of my self-respect back, so when I felt even the slightest bit like snickering, I bit my tongue.

To blend in with the rest of the dinners around us, Angel moved things randomly around on her plate, and fed portions of it to me occasionally to hide the fact she really wasn't eating much of anything. She did try small tastes of things on both her and my plates, but was careful enough not to over-do anything despite her practicing this week, as she was well aware that she would still have to get rid of it later.

Even if the night and dinner date almost seemed like a normal one that any other couple might have had, and we were having fun with our impromptu childish game, I still had that warning itch at the back of my neck, that same one that kept me alive during 50-years of fighting vampires. Despite the pleasant evening and the picture perfect company I had, I wasn't able to totally shake that bad feeling.

Nothing out of the ordinary happened throughout our meal, and while glad it was peaceful, that feeling of dread wouldn't leave me, staying just below the surface of my consciousness.

I smiled anyway as Angel filled me in on her entire day as we ate. I found that I loved the sound of her voice; even as she picked apart the plot to some TV soap opera she had watched that afternoon. I loved even more how her hand naturally reached across the table to find mine, and the way her thumb and fingers gently caressed my hand as she talked.

Watching her lips move as she spoke only filled me with the desire to kiss them, and I found myself thinking that we might not even make it to the parking lot before I had to taste her again. It must have been easy for her to tell what was going through my mind, because she abruptly stopped talking for a moment and lightly squeezed my hand. When I gazed at her, she gave me a look that seemed to say to me that she was having similar thoughts of her own.

With all this unspoken communication going on between us, how could this night turn out to be anything but nearly perfect I silently asked myself… hoping that this feeling of uneasiness, caused mainly by a silly dream, would take the hint and go away.

I was still a little relieved when we finished dinner, and declining the desert cart, we decided to maybe extend out date a bit longer and find something else to do, before calling it a night and heading for home.

Angel said she'd be up for anything, a trip to a art gallery, a movie, or even a nice walk…anything at all would be fine with her as long as she was doing it with me. To hear her say that, gave me a thrill that I hadn't experience in nearly one hundred years.

Without any awkwardness on my part, I told her I felt the exact same way about her. The smile that lit up her beautiful face warmed me, and I had no doubt again, that I was falling in love with her.

At that instant, I made myself the promise that I was going to make this right with her… no more secrets. I was going to find a way – somehow – to tell her everything, and to make it work.

Soon.

As we stood up, Angel excused herself to visit the ladies room, claiming a need to touch-up her make-up just in case we decided to stop somewhere along the way where there were other people.

At first, I automatically baulked at the notion of letting her out of my sight, especially with being slightly on edge as I was with that annoying feeling I had. But when I voiced my concern, Angel regarded me with one good-naturally up-raised eyebrow that plainly said I should have been smart enough to read between the lines in her excuse for using the restroom.

It was then with a flash of insight I figured it all out for myself. Without a doubt Angel would crucially inspect her make-up and clothing for any defects during her restroom visit. But it also suddenly occurred to me that she also wanted to discreetly get rid of what she had sampled from our plates during dinner.

I guess I've never been one for taking into account the complicated fine details of being a member of the fairer gender, but Angel seemed willing to forgive my genetic male flaw for the moment. She bid me to go have the Ford brought up to the main exit, saying she would be perfectly fine without me near-by for the few moments she would need to make herself presentable to the public eye.


	22. Chapter 21

Chapter Twenty-One:

The main parking lot and valet parking station were located at the rear of the Lakeview Manor Restaurant, leaving a beautiful and unobstructed view through large floor-to-ceiling windows of Puget Sound for the front of the establishment. I had just handed the pimply-faced, red-headed, teenage valet my parking ticket for the Explorer, again feeling the momentary cringe at having arrived at the place with my beautiful date in the rickety old SUV, instead of something better suited to a night out… like the Corvette she had been admiring.

I was definitely out of practice for wisely planning out such things as courting; otherwise I might have put more thought into what I was doing as far as providing transportation equal to the occasion.

Not that I didn't have several other vehicles on hand besides the Vette, mind you. Like my number of rather large bank accounts and stashes of other valuable items that I've acquired over the long years of my life, I also have an assortment of other forms of transportation that I've collected during that time as well that were stored around town, and even in other cities I occasionally frequent.

I just had gotten use to keeping as low of a profile as I possibly could over the last decade or two, and it simply didn't occur to me to maybe take one of the better rides out of storage.

I promised next time I would do better, Angel deserved that, and I'll be damned lucky if she didn't think ill of me for such a careless oversight.

The boy took my ticket, and paused only for a moment to search the board of keys for my set. He had just located them and removed them from the upper corner of the big board when I caught that scent, the one that always made the hairs on the back of my neck stand straight up like a soldier at attention.

I turned around, automatically dropping my weight into a solid fighting stance and expecting an ambush.

No one attacked me… but the lone well-dressed male just now heading toward the doors keyed my fight or flight instinct. My hearing kicked in and raised a notch; I could hear him taking in breaths in a clear and very even pattern. A human's breathing rhythm would be slightly uneven from walking up that slight incline leading to the doorway.

He was on the scent of something… or someone.

The boy behind me didn't find anything strange about a patron walking in without parking his or her vehicle first, as there was a boardwalk coming from the lakeside walkway and leading down to the restaurant, so foot traffic wasn't uncommon at any hour.

It was just passed 9:30 in the evening, and even if his scent hadn't warned me, the dark sunglasses concealing his eyes would have given me reason to be suspicious, if not outright vigilant.

"_Angel!"_ was my first panicked thought as he reached for the bright brass door handle with a hand that looked as if it were made out of white marble.

Nothing gives off a deep low-frequency bass growl like a pissed-off vampire. And even with being only a half-blood, I had that little attribute down pat. The kid behind me might not have noticed the almost involuntary low pitched rumbling issuing from somewhere deep within my chest, but the vamp sure as hell couldn't help but detect it.

His hand froze on the handle before he could open it, and he slowly swiveled his head toward me in an arrogant way. The breeze slightly shifted as the building acted like a wind funnel, coming a bit more strongly now from him toward me, and I caught his true pungent underling scent, the odor of a predator vamp that dines on the blood of other vampires.

A Rogue!

Underneath him on the air current, with my now heightened senses, I could smell the familiar trail he had been following, using that steady breathing cadence for tracking her. Angel's sweetness was leading him right to us… to her!

He reached up with one forefinger to slide the sunglasses low enough down his long nose so I could see his bright blood red eyes. If I might have had a doubt as to what type of vamp he was, one look would have settled it. A thirsty vamp's eyes are black, while a human hunting vampire's eyes are usually red compared to a non-hunter's soft golden brown. Only a Rogue's eyes constantly blaze that bright burning red, as if a fire where always burning inside them.

The gesture was supposed to be a warning for me not to screw with him… and had I been human or simply another vamp, it might have meant something to me.

He knew that if I were anything other than human, that we were close enough now that I could scent exactly what he was. There were so many humans in the vicinity that they probably covered over my slowing beating heart in his hearing. So he assumed I was another full vampire, and in his view of the world no normal vampire would hang around after being dismissed by a marauder such as he.

He probably also assumed that I would be glad he was after bigger game instead of myself, and take the opportunity to get out of Dodge while I could.

Unfortunately for the situation, the 'game' he was after was more important to me now than my life itself, and there was not anyway on the planet that I was going to be stepping out of his way.

He snorted at me with plain contempt, and then showed his perfect teeth to me in a big grin as he started to slowly push his sunglasses back up the bridge of his nose.

I suppose he thought he was being a nice guy by giving me a break, and not going for my throat.

Well… I had been called a ungrateful cuss a time or two in my life, and tonight looked like it was shaping up to be another one of those times.

With that silent challenge standing between us, I had almost completely forgotten about the teen boy standing behind me with my keys. Though I would expect that the sudden tension in the air was detectable even to him by then.

And it was about to get worse… much worse.

The most adverse thing one vampire could do to another vampire was to bare his teeth at him or her, it was one reason vamps meeting each other for the first time tended to be cautious about showing a full smile, and finally did so after only becoming very familiar with each other.

The most fatal thing a vampire can do is bear their teeth to an older more experienced vampire… or to a Rogue vampire that had just made the rare and almost unheard of decision to let them go.

My response to this Rogue's cautionary gesture and subsequent dismissal… was a big smile full of fangs.

I have to give it to him, he wasn't too surprised at what he saw and didn't bother trying to figure me out. Instead, he just dropped his glasses to one side, hissed deeply, and lunged at me all within a split-second.

My experience and training took over, and I was rushing to meet him ever before I could consciously think about it. My fingernail had already lengthened and hardened into sharp claws before I'd even taken that first step.

Luck, and probably physics, were on my side. I had managed to gather the most momentum in my charge as I was heading slightly downhill toward him, and when I barreled into the Rogue, I drove the vamp backward several steps until he hit a waist high decorative stonewall at the edge of the walkway.

We hit with such speed and force that I heard several bones in the Rogue's legs and hips snap and crack as we both went over in a tangle, to tumble into the lush thick landscaping on the other side.

The Rogue ignored whatever pain he was in from his sudden injuries, and was making loud predator cat-like snarls until I managed to lock one hand around his throat to cut them off. My claws pierced the flesh around his neck, but I knew there was no point even trying to rip his throat out because it wouldn't have killed him anyway. What it did give me was a firm hold on him for the moment, and that I needed.

With the cougar-like growls silenced, I could now hear the boy behind us calling for a halt to the fight, and making threats to call the police if we didn't stop right away.

The dark of the evening, and heavy but perfectly landscaped shrubbery hid much of what we were doing from his view, which was a good thing. I knew I didn't have much time, even hurt like he was his bones were mending in rapid order. Only a broken neck took any useful length of time to heal in most vamps.

Not even the chokehold I had really mattered, as he didn't need air to breathe, unlike me. The Rogue vamp would eventually recover enough to win our struggle if I didn't do something to put him out of the fight real quick.

I ignored his hands as they flailed around and tried to gain a hold on me to rip out great hunks of my flesh. I took several glancing hits high in the ribcage that shook me to the spine. They hurt like hell and I knew that had he struck me lower – in the floating ribs – the blows would have shattered them. As it was, I was glad they had been accidental hits, and not aimed blows at the Rogue's full power.

The hold I had on the vamp's neck was holding his head reasonable still, making it the only viable and stable target for me, so I cocked back my free arm and straightened out my fingers to form a _Nukite_ spear-hand fist. I thrust forward, and with all my might drove the inch-long claws at the tips of my four fingers into his right eye. I felt the orbital socket of his skull crack, and my fingers didn't stop until I'd buried them in up to the second joints.

The effect was almost immediate as my nails pierced a short way into his brain. His body stiffened like a board under me and then vibrated for a few seconds as all his systems went haywire and temporarily shut down.

When he finally went totally slack just a moment later, I pulled my hand out of his skull and quickly wiped what gore I could off on the front of his shirt.

I knew he wasn't dead, and would be up in a matter of minutes again to start the fight all over.

I needed some way to buy more time for Angel and me!

Unfortunately, I didn't have a handy bonfire close-by to dump his helpless body into. And with this kid still yelling behind us and threatening to call in the cops, I couldn't afford the time to dismember him as much as I could either.

I quickly searched the area, and within seconds stumbled over a discard two-foot long garden stake. So just like in the movies, I snatched it up and drove it all the way through the Rogue's chest and into the ground underneath him.

If nothing else, it would buy me those few more extra minutes I need to grab Angel and escape while he tried to unpin himself and work the stake out.

Regrettably for me, I heard a shocked gasp come from behind me just as I finished my impromptu impression of Doctor Van Helsing. I spun around just in time to be pinned myself, in the beam of a small flashlight that the valet kid happened to have on him. It seemed like he'd gotten tired at what he probably thought were two drunks brawling on his expensively landscaped back lawn, and decided to hop the small wall and see to breaking it up himself.

The light hurt my eyes of a moment; so I knew that my irises had turned silver so I could better see in the dark. If that wasn't enough of a clue to tell the boy something wasn't right with this picture, I'm sure the staked body on the ground and my over-sized fangs filled in all the gaps for him just fine.

I cursed, but it came out in a predator cat growl. The kid squeaked, and I suddenly smelled something musty in the air as the boy urinated on himself.

"_Great! Just great,"_ I thought to myself. _"Now what do I do?" _My ribs still smarted, but at least the pain was thankfully rapidly fading.

The boy started mumbling something and trying to back away. I sprang forward, covering the short distance in a blink and knocked the light from his hand. I didn't need to attract anyone else's attention to this massive cluster screw.

He started to hyperventilate, his eyes as big as the dinner plates inside the restaurant.

"Please… don't… kill me," the kid barely got out.

We were close enough now that even in the dim light, the valet got a real good look at me. The claws, the fangs, the eyes, the apparently dead body with a big wooden stake through it… Oh yeah – there was going to be no explaining this one away.

Instead of trying, I took the boy by the arm and started to lead him away back to the sidewalk. He whimpered and started to recite a Hail Mary rather loudly.

"Knock that off," I hissed as we reached the little wall and I dragged him over it. I checked in all directions, and luckily I caught a break - no one else was approaching us.

Once there, I turned back to the kid.

"Listen," I said, and he shook his head rapidly. Which I guess one might be prone to do when confronted and told to pay attention by a six-foot-one man, with oversized canine teeth peeking out from his upper lip, inch long claws on his fingertips, and creepy silver eyes. "Find something else to go, somewhere else to be, for at least the next fifteen minutes," I instructed the lad. "You are not going to want to be here when that guy wakes up… and he _will_ be waking up shortly in a very, very pissed off mood."

I pointed at the Rogue's hidden body with one clawed finger.

The teenager was shaking so badly, I almost missed the small nod he tried to give me.

I snatched my car keys that were still in his one hand, obviously forgotten. Then noticed a half-full bottle of spring water on his valet desk, and a towel hanging off his belt that he probably kept to wipe down the more expensive cars he parked. I seized the bottle and dumped out all the water onto my hands to clean the rest of the vamp's eyeball gook from my hand and fingers, and then grabbed the towel away from him to find finish wiping and drying them.

"You're… you're not gonna kill me?" the kid asked a few seconds later.

"Not today," I told him offhandedly… I wanted him to take me seriously after all. "But he will when we wakes up and finds you still here. You're also going to want to burn that… now," I told him as I tossed the clothe back to him.

He caught it automatically, and I took a moment to try and figure out my next move. Running blind would be a bad thing, and I need a few seconds to plan smart. I could see if I didn't figure out what I was going to do soon, the kid was going to work up his nerve and start asking me questions… and I didn't want to deal with that either.

It was either a blessing or bad timing… but Angel chose that moment to exit the place to join me.

"Kage?" she called out as soon as she made it out the door. "Where's the car?"

I lucked out a little at least at that moment, and I had my back to her, so she hadn't gotten a good look at my current condition.

On the down side, the boy saw everything as my face changed back to normal. That pretty much left him as wide eyed as a little kid on Christmas morning.

"Tell no one what you saw here tonight, ever, if you like breathing," I warned him in a whisper so low he could barely hear it. "And get your ass out of here before our friend wakes up from his beauty rest… if you want to live pass tonight."

The valet nodded wordlessly at me. There wasn't much more I could do at that point – he was either going to listen to me and scram, or not. Now time was running out and I had to get Angel out of here before the Rogue woke up… or worse, the rest of his coven showed up.

I was surprised they hadn't already, as they normally hunted in packs, and I looked nervously around as I scanned the area for any signs of them. I figure they couldn't have been too close; otherwise they would have come to the vamp's aid as soon as the fight started.

That fact also worried me, if they weren't nearby, then where were they? That was a mystery I definitely didn't like.

I briefly wondered if the Rogue I'd temporarily taken out was one of the vamps that had attacked Angel on that first night, but decided it really didn't matter at the moment, and there was no way of finding out anyway unless I wanted to hang around to personally ask him.

Which I wasn't about to do.

"What's wrong? Where's the Ford?" Angel asked as soon as I rejoined her at the door. Her pretty little brow was furrowed in concern. "What's that smell?" she asked a second later, wrinkling her pug nose.

"Nothing," I said as I took her arm, hoping she wouldn't detect the staked Rogue laying in the landscaping, or smell anything of him left on me. I started to lead her toward the parking lot. "I got into chatting with the valet and lost track of the time. I decided we could just walk to the truck instead."

"Well, okay. It's a nice night for a stroll anyway," Angel replied. She sniffed and twitched her nose again, and I wondered if she was indeed scenting the Rogue? "What the heck is that?" she asked again, and I increased our pace a bit hoping to get her away from there.

"Its getting stronger,' she said, as we neared the valet, who was watching us with wondrous eyes. I cursed silently, knowing her senses were far superior to mine, and at the same time fearing that she might be picking up the Rogue's pack closing in on us; seeing we were walking further and further away from the downed vampire behind us.

We got a few steps passed the kid, when Angel abruptly turned around and looked at him funny, while still walking backwards for a few steps. She then turned around again just as quickly and leaned closer in to me as we kept walking toward where the Explorer had been parked.

"Is it me… or did that guy pee his pants?" she asked me in a stage whisper.

That seemed to be what was bothering her and I immediately felt myself relax.

"I wouldn't know," I told her innocently as I could manage, as we closed in on our ride home.

Holding Angel by the arm, and marching her faster than the leisurely pace of a stroll that I'm sure she was planning on, we made it without incident to the Explorer.

"Did we skip out on the bill or something?" she wisecracked, noticing my rush to leave.

"No," I replied absently, knowing that she certainly saw me pay and tip the waitress before we left the table. I repeatedly scanned the parking lot for anything suspicious, trying not to be overly blatant about it for Angel's sake, as I didn't want to panic her if I could avoid it.

My experience told me that a fairly crowed parking lot was not going to be my enemies first choice of places to stage an ambush… just too much of a possibility of witnesses.

And then again, that's what would also make it a perfect place to set one… I wouldn't be expecting them to really make a try here. Add to that, that Rogues are supposedly notorious for being unpredictable.

You could really drive yourself crazy attempting to logically plan out all of the possibilities with this sort of lifestyle.

Using the remote to unlock the doors, I checked the cargo area and backseat through the windows as I passed them – no one was hiding inside – and had Angel in the passenger seat just a few seconds later. I had myself into the driver seat even quicker.

"What's wrong?" she asked me with a curious look that was bordering on concerned.

"Nothing," I replied once more, as I set the key in the ignition and turned it all in one motion. The engine caught for a second as I gave it gas and then died.

I froze with dread for a moment.

The outside of the Ford may look a little rusty and ratty, but I made sure that the power plant was in tip-top condition, pretty much a left-over habit from the days when I needed a reliable get-away vehicle. After all as the saying goes… _"Its what's under the hood that counts."_

The Explorer _always_ started on the first try… I see to that first thing with my maintenance program.

Without thinking I automatically hit the key again, and was rewarded when the V-6 purred to life like it normally did.

I held back a sigh of relief as the Ford smoothly slid into gear and pulled out of the parking spot. I put the false start mishap down to nerves, as I most likely stepped on the gas pedal a touch too soon and slightly flooded the engine before it had a chance to fully crank over.

Angel was watching me now with a hint of amusement on her pretty face.

"Maybe you should have stopped in the restroom to void too?" she offered flippantly. It was then that I got she assumed something I just ate wasn't sitting well with me, and I maybe wanted to make it home before anything unsightly happened. Not relishing the idea of telling her about the Rogue, and how I was able to best him in empty-hand combat for the moment, I played along.

"Guess so," I agreed. "Four-star restaurant my ass, huh?" I tossed out. "I'm starting to feel better now."

Angel just smiled and gave a small giggle.

"Sorry," she apologized for the tease, as she turned back in her seat to gaze out the windshield.

"So what do you want to do now?" I asked. I would have rather gone directly home where it was safe, but we had made further plans for the evening and I didn't want to disappoint Angel any more than I wanted to alarm her. And I considered we should be reasonable safe now that we were away from the restaurant. If we didn't know where we were heading at the moment, there was no way the Rogues could either.

She smiled at me and said, "I don't know. I suppose we can do anything… as long as it's not to hard on your delicate condition." The grin she ended with was a bit teasing, but good-natured.

I might have thought of something witty to say for a comeback at that point… if the Ford hadn't suddenly died.

We had made it just a little over a mile!


	23. Chapter 22

Chapter Twenty-Two: Knights On White Horses

Ronald Jablewski watched the tall man lead the pretty young girl away to a rusty old SUV.

"Nosferatu!" he murmured to himself, giving the creature the proper name that hundreds of movies and books had taught him. Everything he had witnessed pointed to that one amazing fact.

"Oh my God! That girl!" he said a moment later as the shock wore off. That creature probably meant to feed on her once he spirited her away!

He wanted to warn her, that she was leaving with a monster! But by the time he thought about taking that action the Explorer was already pulling out of the parking lot.

"Damn it!" he muttered in anger, as he took a useless single step in that direction. That girl had been so young, and beautiful… and because he had dropped the ball, she was probably going to be dead within the hour!

Ronald kicked at the gravel making up the parking lot, and then a new thought hit him. In the movies and books, vampires always wanted to either make a slave of beautiful human woman, or turn them into their mate… another undead vampire like them!

Maybe he hadn't dropped the ball after all, and God was giving him a second chance to save the day… and that very, very, pretty girl!

He padded his pockets until he found what he hoped he still had. He located it within seconds, still in the front right pocket of his valet vest. He withdrew the ticket stub for the SUV that the monster had handed to him.

Written in his own neat handwriting at the bottom of the ticket was the license plate number to the Explorer.

He had a way to find and rescue her!

Ronald recalled the warning about the staked body in the bushes. The vampire said it was going to rise again within minutes, so that coupled with the stake through the heart meant that the body was another vampire.

But how could it rise again if it was staked through the heart? That was supposed to kill vampires. He racked his memory for a moment, then recalled reading somewhere that the stakes used to kill vampires had to be made from a certain kind of wood, and even blessed by a priest sometimes. He was reasonably certain that the stakes the landscapers used probably didn't meet either one of those conditions.

So it was logical to assume the second vampire might not really be dead after all.

He needed to confirm his theory one final time with one last piece of evidence. He ran to one of the parked cars that had a perfect view of the rear door and the landscaping, and slipped inside.

He'd always left the doors unlocked on cars he parked, so he got into the front seat and slide down until he was just peeking over the dashboard and mostly hidden from view.

The boy waited, watching the time on his watch, and a little over eight minutes after he'd hidden in the car, sure enough the scrubs twitched slightly and out stepped that body he'd last seen with a stake in it.

The first vampire was right, this second one looked very pissed off, and it probably wasn't because of its ruined shirt. It paused once it was back on the sidewalk and seemed to be sniffing the air.

Something must had displeased it even more, because he suddenly made a fist and lashed out backwards with it to take out a huge chuck of the decorative stone wall that lined the sidewalk to the back door.

The creature then straightened its trashed sports coats, and pulled out a cell phone to begin speaking into it seconds later.

It then turned and headed off back down the walkway toward the lake.

That proved it as far as Ronald was concerned: vampires did in fact exist.

And he might be the only human alive to have that knowledge; the question now was… what was he going to do with it.

The first priority was to save that girl, he decided… and the thought thrilled him. The heroes in the stories were always some unlikely character, the least one you'd expect to be a hero. And it was common for the monsters to make the mistake of underestimating the hero at some point in the beginning and leaving him alive.

Just like that first vampire had done with him tonight by letting him go.

It may have been that the two creatures were fighting over the girl, and the winner simply didn't have time to take care of Ronald properly because he had to get his prize as far away from the other vamp as quickly as possible. He did mention something about, 'not killing me today.'

The reason didn't matter, what he had to do was clear. God hadn't given him that intense interest in horror movies and books, and then spared him tonight for nothing. He had been incurring knowledge over the years since he had first learned to read for what God had always intended him to do. It had all been God's way of preparing and training him for this moment!

This was his true calling, his destiny coming to him at the ripe old age of seventeen, he was sure of it now!

"Ronald Jablewski – Vampire Hunter," he tried out in a serious tone. Then shook his head in dismissal. "Too Anime-ish," he decided. He thought a little bit more on it.

"Ron Jablewski – Vamp Stalker," he tried next, and then scowled as soon as he said it. "Way lame," he admitted, not hard-core enough for him.

He thought some more, and then some lyrics from his favorite rap song started running through his head when something appropriate for his new calling didn't come up.

Suddenly, he smiled as it clicked for him.

"Ron – J, Vampire Killer."

That he liked.

With his new working name settled, he figured he have at least three days according to vampire lore before the monster was able to turn the girl. Then according to legend, he'd only have until she made her first human kill to kill her maker before her soul was absolutely lost.

In that time he should be able to track the plate number down, acquire the weapons and further information he needed, and be able to catch the beast in his lair during the daytime hours while he slept in his coffin, and kill him in the proper traditional manner… thus saving the girl.

He remembered the girl vividly, and how pretty she was. He wondered if once he rescued her from the vampire's clutches if she'd be grateful enough to go out on a date with him afterwards?

He smiled at the thought, and then something began to feel clammy down below. He glanced down at the front of his dark work trousers and frowned deeply at the reminder.

He wished he hadn't been so scared he wet himself. He promised it would never happen again, that's not something a cool vampire killer would ever do.


	24. Chapter 23

Chapter Twenty-Three:

"Oh… shit!" I muttered, as I let the Explorer coast to the side of the road. I quickly glanced around; we were in the business and manufacturing district, which was practically deserted this time of the night. The nearest streetlights were a couple of hundred feet from us in both directions. Fate couldn't have dumped us in a worse possible spot if our enemies had planned it themselves.

That cold feeling of dread came back to me, and got me thinking that our enemies probably did plan this somehow.

"What's wrong now?" Angel asked, more annoyed at the problem than concerned… but than again, she didn't know what I knew… yet!

"I don't know," I said, as I reached across her to fetch a small flashlight that I kept in the glove compartment for emergencies. I debated then telling her about the Rogue, but elected to cross my fingers and hope that this was just all a strange coincidence before alarming her needlessly. "Stay here while I take a look at it," I told her.

"Sure thing, that being man's work and all," she said, as she began paging through an old coupon book I'd left in the glove box after buying it from some girl scout a few months ago for some annual drive they had.

I hit the hood release and stepped out, and as soon as I closed the door I had a sinking feeling because I could already smell the gasoline. I've never before hoped so much for a ruptured fuel line; a quick inspection soon revealed that wasn't the source of the problem. The smell of gas was stronger under the hood, so I traced the line further until I came to the fuel filter.

I always double clamped such places, in case one clamp or set of clamps failed or broke. Before me, both clamps on the feed side of the filter were clearly hanging loose around the hose, the end of which had somehow worked itself off and was barely touching the filter nozzle now.

I checked each of the loose clamps, one after the other. Normally the slots on the screw heads would have been filled with dirt and grease from the engine and road by know. Both screw slots were relatively clear at the moment, meaning somebody had recently unscrewed them!

I mentally began kicking myself for the stupid half-vampire I was. It should have occurred to me if that Rogue could follow Angel's scent to the restaurant, he could just as well have first backtracked her to the vehicle she arrived in to disable it before going into the place.

The locks on some Fords were not known to be very tamperproof. In some cases, they could be picked with nothing more than just a small screwdriver and a large paperclip; I've done so numerous times myself.

With his vampire speed, the Rogue could very well have picked the lock, pop the hood, unscrewed the gas filter clamps, and relocked the door all within just a few seconds… and without being noticed.

He had probably meant the sabotage as a back-up plan in case he couldn't get to Angel inside the restaurant, knowing that we would only make it a short distance before the fuel line fell all the way off the filter to leave us stranded on the road.

Or… the sabotage was the main plan in fact, and he was only going into the Lakeview to keep an eye on Angel, while his coven gathered outside to follow us and take us outside of plain public view when the SUV stalled out.

Either way… I didn't much like the way this was shaping up. His friends could be on the way even as I tinkered under the hood.

It might have been a good idea at that point to let Angel know what was going on, but I made a snap decision and decided that repairing the fuel line was more urgent, and I could have it done in the time it would have taken to stop and fill her in.

Luckily, I had my Leatherman tool on me. This amazing little tool held everything you could almost ever need, except for a hammer. No real pro musician was ever without one, because you never knew what sort of little thing you'd have to fix, or screw you might have to tighten on the fly during a gig.

I rammed the rubber hose back onto the filter end, and with the screwdriver blade attachment quickly retightened the first of the clamps. I only needed the one, and the back-up clamp could wait for another time to be refastened after we were safe.

I slammed the hood down, getting ready to congratulate myself on a job well done, when I looked up into a pair of blood-red eyes. Below the eyes, in what I realized was a mahogany-toned face, was the huge perfect-teeth grin of a vampire.

"Oh…!" was all I managed to get out before a fist seemingly came out of nowhere and blasted me in the face.

The next thing I knew I was laying on the ground looking up at the night sky, at what I could only guessed to be several yards away from where I had been standing just a few seconds ago.

The very next thing I heard was Angel suddenly screaming.

"Come here, you bitch!" a gruff voice barked as I recognized the familiar protesting sound of the Explorer's passenger door hinge being yanked open. Angel's cries suddenly increased in volume as well.

My head was still ringing as I tried to recall the process on how to regain my feet; I automatically worked my jaw to see if it still worked. I idly noticed that it did in fact still work, and knew that had I been a true human, the vamp's punch would have taken it clean off my face instead of just leaving it really smarting.

I had originally planned on going to Angel's aid, but that idea was obstructed by the same Rogue that had ambushed me, as I suddenly found him standing over me.

Angel was still screaming in the background, and I could still hear sounds of a struggle coming from where I judged the Explorer to be, so at that point I was able to put two-and-two together and realized we had at least two attackers on our hands.

My current problem with sharp teeth was a big black man, with some serious Rasta-style dreadlocks. He was wearing a half-length light-brown leather coat that looked like it had once been the height of male fashion sometime in the 70's… before disco met it definite demise.

"How's it going, meat puppet?" he chuckled, as he reached down to grab me by the lapels of my new sports jacket. He picked me up until my feet dangled several inches from the ground, holding me in front of him, as he looked me over.

I felt the seams in the back of the jacket start to tear from the strain of trying to hold my weight, not that it was that much of a personal loss to me. Crazily, I was almost thinking of thanking him for the excuse to get rid of the garment without hurting Angel's feelings.

Instead, I kept my mind on more important business – like not getting killed in the next ten seconds, and also managed to make the mental note that the vamp was several inches taller than I was.

He brought me up to eye level with him, so he could better taunt and terrify me… two big mistakes on his part.

The last thing anyone wants to do is bring an enemy inside their guard, not matter how weak you think they are. Plus, by using both his hands to lift me, he'd taken two of his weapons out of the fight.

And I meant to show him the error of his ways… as soon as I could get two or more of my own brain cells back and working in tandem once more. That punch to the head had really rattled my brain matter something fierce.

Angel screamed again, and my growing panic at not being able to think straight, and fright for my own predicament turned to fear for her, which thankfully, in turn finally cleared my head from the knock I took.

The Rogue manhandling me, tossed a quick look over his shoulder toward whatever was happening at the Explorer, and laughed heartily at what he saw as he turned back toward me.

He grinned at me, showing his teeth and starting to hiss.

The Rogue wasn't taking me seriously, and he drew me in even closer as he intended to bite and drain me. I figured he was going to be quick about it, seeing human blood wasn't really what he wanted. He was only interested in killing me to rid themselves of a witness.

My head still already hurt, but I tucked my chin in anyway, and as he lunged forward to bury his teeth in my throat, I rammed my forehead into the bridge of his nose as hard as I could. The combined force of our meeting cracked the thinner bone surrounding his orbital sockets and traumatized his sinus cavities, which like in a human caused his eyes to severely tear and monetarily blind him.

It also rocked his head backwards.

I ignored the new pain pounding through my frontal lobes, thanked god for my thick skull, and took the opening he offered me. I curled my fingers at the second joints to make the first part of a fist, and then drove those four knuckles into his exposed throat as hard as I could as well, making sure to snap the blow in the Japanese-style to transfer all the punch's energy into the target.

Such a blow would seriously disable, if not out-right kill, a human being. It wouldn't kill a vamp or even make one gasp for breath, but it still hurt just a much.

That also made his head bend inward toward me again, which is what I really wanted. Learning how to attack your opponent in such a way, that each attack leaves them set-up for the next, was a good part of winning any fight or battle.

I immediately straightened the fingers on that same hand and spread them out, then jammed them into his eyeballs.

That I knew for a fact hurt no matter who you were.

For as strong as they are, vampires still shared some of the minor design flaws that humans did… and over the decades, I've pretty much learned what they all were and how to exploit them.

The Rogue dropped me at that point, whether it was from the pain I caused him or that he just decided I was simply just too much trouble to keep a hold of, really didn't matter much. I achieved the desired results.

He should have been paying more attention to his surrounding and to where he was standing. My next tactic wasn't as sly and had absolutely no grace to it at all.

I simply bum rushed him as soon as my feet hit the ground, taking advantage of the situation to slam him as hard as I could into the bumper and grill of the Explorer. We hit so hard that the 4X4 rocked backward on its suspension. The Rogue shrieked, maybe more in surprise because he forgot the SUV was there, maybe in pain because his back nearly bent doubled on itself… but sadly didn't snap like I'd hoped it would.

We went to grappling in the next instant. I felt him start to snake his arms around me, attempting to get me into a bear hug. I realized right away I was too late to evade him, so I threw myself at him instead. I reached upward; grabbing both his shoulders to pull myself upwards and making him miss his intended target of my mid-back, to where his arms would instead lock lower toward my hips and making it harder for him to break my spine.

At the same time, I piston my right knee up into his floating ribs, and was pleased to hear those thinner ribs crunch.

My move surprised him. He wasn't use to prey that fought back, and it became obvious he wasn't use to fighting with an opponent that got inside his guard to fight close. That advantage served me well up until the point where I had unbalanced him enough that we now fell to the ground right in front of my SUV.

Once on the pavement it was a slightly different story, he was a little more use to taking his prey to the ground to feed on, so this was familiar territory to him.

We hit, with him on the bottom at first, right smack in the middle of the small puddle of gasoline that had leaked from the Ford's disconnected fuel line. We scrambled around for several more seconds, snarling like cougars at one another. Eventually, he worked a foot between us, and with the firm ground as his ally and launching point, bucked me off of him to sent me crashing to the ground in a head over heels flip.

I was never much good at break-falls, preferring to roll out of a throw if I could, but I could still do them. That skill saved me from having the wind knocked out of me, and worse yet any broken bones, it did however leave me down on the ground where I definitely didn't want to be.

Before I could recover, the Rogue was on me with vampire quickness, and his steel-like hands locked around my throat. It wasn't enough to bite and drain me now; he wanted me to suffer as he slowly throttled me to death.

All I could do was try to dig my chin into his hands to slightly ease the crushing pressure on my larynx and maybe buy me a few more precious seconds of life. It was probably a good thing I couldn't draw in too deep of a breath anyway because he reeked of gasoline from our struggle of just a few moments ago.

He was hissing madly now, describing to me how he was going to choke me nearly to death and then let me recover a bit so he could do it all over again.

Pounding on him would have been pointless, I couldn't do enough damage to him no matter what from the position I was in, and what little I could do his body would heal long before I could break free.

Instead, my hands roamed wildly, trying to find a pivot point I could use to unbalance his rock-hard position and tip him off of me. I wasn't finding much I could exploit, and unfortunately one of the human body design flaws that _didn't_ work on most vampires was pressure points.

Pressure points were extreme helpful in breaking holds, and finding ways to unbalance someone who'd managed to get on top and pin you… again, in humans, not vamps!

I was starting to see black spots dancing around in my vision, and almost didn't realize that my right hand had somehow managed to find its way into one of the wide-mouthed pockets of the Rogue's leather coat.

Something rectangular and cold found its way into my palm and my oxygen starving brain almost didn't recognize what it was.

Fate, if not god, sometimes smiles on fools and half-vampires like they did me just then. A few of my fading brain cells were able to rub together one last time and work out what the treasure in my hand was, just as my chin slipped and let the Rogue get a good hold on my throat.

"You… know," I was barely able to squeak out, as my hand came free of his pocket. "Smoking will… kill… you!"

The Rogue looked at me in confusion, and his chokehold eased up just the tinniest of bits.

Behind his back came a familiar metallic click, and then the rough snap that usually accompanies it.

I touched the Zippo lighter to the back of his gas soaked coat, and not being able to see it, I wasn't even sure it had lit. I was ecstatic to see just a moment later, flames leap up his shoulder and into his hair.

He became well aware at that moment that I'd just lit up his life.

The Rogue shrieked like a banshee as all of his hair went up. Fire being the greatest fear and only sure destroyer of their kind, the Rogue leap from me and took off like a rocket. He probably meant to head toward the lake and its cooling waters, I idly made a note that in his panic – he was heading in the wrong direction.

I wasn't feeling very charitable at the moment, so I didn't bother trying to point out his error.


	25. Chapter 24

Chapter Twenty-Four:

As much as I needed it, I didn't have the time to waste on recovering. I had no idea what had happened to Angel during my brief battle with the dusky-toned Rogue.

I sprang to my feet and only had to turn in the direction of the Ford to find Angel there in a desperate fight for her life with another Rogue vampire. This one had long blonde hair and sort of reminded me of the longhaired German terrorist from the first _Die Hard_ movie – though I couldn't recall his name at the moment.

Angel was snarling like a hellcat, slashing with her strong fingers at her opponent, and snapping at him with her sharp teeth. She'd taken several minor cuts, where the male she was battling didn't appear to have taken any. Instead, he almost playfully danced just out of reach every time Angel took a swipe at him.

He was toying with her, taking advantage of her still weakened condition to amuse himself for a bit. He appeared to be having so much fun that he hadn't even noticed his companion's abrupt flaming departure from the scene.

He probably never thought that his coven mate might have any trouble with what they obviously thought was just another puny human.

As much as an edge as it normally was to me, I was getting pretty annoyed with being underestimated lately!

I leaped forward, all claws and fangs to educate him. My jumped carried me over the hood and passenger side of the Explorer to land at his side. I snarled my challenge, and raked my claws through his nearest arm, taking him across the bicep to slice him open.

He let go of Angel and leaped backwards in surprise at the attack he hadn't seen coming. I just as quickly placed myself between him and her, not daring to spare even a second to turn around to check on her. Taking my eyes off my enemy for any reason would be the death of us both for sure, so I could only hope Angel wasn't too badly hurt.

I didn't even bother thinking about my secret being exposed to Angel now, if we survived the next few minutes, let alone the rest of the night, that was something I would have to worry about later.

"Kage!" Angel was shouting from behind me as she realized what was happening. "Don't! He'll kill you… you can't fight him!"

Her voice was full of panic, more for my safety than for hers, because she still thought I was just human. She moved and I found that I could keep track of her by scent alone. She was rushing up behind me, and I wasn't surprised when I felt her hand land on my shoulder as she attempted to pull me away from the Rogue and behind her.

I didn't budge, which surprised her… probably almost as much as when I placed a clawed hand on her chest and firmly pressed to keep her behind me instead.

The Rogue briefly examined the healing slashes on his arm through the remains of his baggy sweatshirt, and then looked back at me, narrowing his eyes for a few seconds as if they might be deceiving him.

He then threw his head back and laughed.

"What the hell are you suppose to be?" he taunted. I was mildly disappointed that he didn't have a German accent like the guy from Die Hard… but you can't have everything.

"Come closer and find out," I offered. You would think having long fangs sticking out of your mouth would make speaking a bit more difficult, it didn't really. The rough growl that came into your voice was almost all vampire attitude.

"Moon Child?" he asked in amusement. "Not very impressive."

"Not a Were," I snarled, thankful now that Angel was staying behind me for the moment and not trying to protect me. She was probably still trying to figure out what was going on. "And your girlfriend found me impressive enough."

It was then that he noticed his coven mate hadn't joined the fun.

"Where's Daemon?" he demanded to know.

"_Was_ that his name," I replied, my turn to taunt now.

"Where is he, mongrel!" he all but screamed at me.

I smiled, all pointy teeth now. Remember… that being the worse thing you could do to a vampire who thought he or she was your better?

"Last I seen him, he was hotfooting it outta here," I told him. "Probably a crispy critter by now."

That did it.

The Rogue screamed to the heavens and charged me. It was on now!

We fought like lions fighting to the death for several moments, the wildness of our actions taking us from the street, toward the darkness of the closed businesses.

I vaguely recalled Angel following behind us, shouting and looking like she was trying to find an opening on the Rogue to land a strike of her own.

The pace was too fast, and our positions changed to often for her to land anything I think… and her long illness was slowing her down.

The vamp was tracking her too, and at one instant when she had gotten too close to him, and he spun to send a back-kick into her gut.

The girl flew helplessly backwards until she impacted a solid wall of one of the storefronts, but I knew better than to let it distract me. I had no choice but to press the fight, or all was lost!

I ended up pretty much with my back against another wall and fighting for both our lives. Angel wasn't going to be much help; the Rogue had struck her pretty hard, sending her flying into the wall behind her. I could hear her head bounce off the bricks from where I was. I could only spare a brief second to hope she hadn't injured her brain and memory further.

The vampire I was dealing with was in fact a pretty good fighter, he'd caught me off-guard several times despite my best effort and knew how to make the most of those advantages. He'd already gotten in close enough to sink his teeth into me good.

The love bit he had given me on my forearm was already spreading venom through me like a wildfire. In the back of my mind, I was beginning to hear and feel what the Rogue did. If I didn't get out of this within the next ten minutes or so and kill the Rogue to break the growing psychic link between us, I was going to be pretty much toast!

But first, I had to prevent him from just killing me within the next minute through just pure fighting skill! He faked a punch, and the growing distraction was enough that I fell for it. The next thing I knew he'd sideslipped and gotten me into a hammerlock.

He had one armed locked around my throat, cutting off my breath at the same time it was threatening to crush my larynx for sure. To make matters that much worse, he had a knee rammed into my lower back and was slowly bending me backwards in an attempt to break my spine!

… So I did something I've never done in over ninety years of fighting vampires and living this half-life of mine.

I bit… and I bit hard!

Turnabout is fair play, or so they say.

Without giving it much thought I had tucked my chin as low as I could and I sank my fangs into the Rogue's arm. I was more than surprised when they cut through his marble flesh like a knife through butter. Given the stone-like quality of vampire skin, I would have thought such a feat near impossible!

However, the next thing I knew I was gagging on his blood and I swallowed the first mouthful on reflex while trying to get enough air into my lungs. Fighting was hard work at any time and even harder when you were being choked-out, and unlike true vamps… I _needed_ to breathe.

The Rogue howled, whether in pain or annoyance at being bit, I didn't know. I do know that he was pissed enough to stop trying to bust my back and began pounding the fist of his free arm into my kidneys at the moment. I winced at the blows and I figured if it was pissing him off this much, I damn sure wasn't going to stop and let go. I could live for the moment with being beaten, as long as my spine remained whole.

The down side was that more of his blood was flowing down my throat, the nasty tasting stuff had set my stomach burning, but I still didn't let go and in fact clamped down harder on his arm instead.

That truly aggravated him even more, but he finally decided he'd had enough and tried to shake me off. I was glad to feel the pressure ease off my neck all together, and didn't even mind it much when he blasted me in the back of the head while trying to dislodge me.

As soon as I was totally free, I went with the next blow, finding myself staggering backward until a wall slammed into me and halted that process. It probably should have hurt more given my spine still smarted from having the Rogue's kneecap jammed into it, but the backhand the Rogue unleashed next didn't give me much time to think about it.

That took me completely off my feet and sent me flying to land at least five yards away from him.

Strangely, I discovered I seemed to be moving in slow motion as I fell, and the ground came up so gradually to my perception that I felt like I had all day to prepare to catch myself. I landed like a cat on the balls of me feet and the tips of my finger.

My head swam slightly, like I was drunk or in a dream, probably from the blow I took. But other than that I suddenly felt good… very good!

And powerful, I've never felt so powerful in all my life. I felt sure I could bend steel with my bare hands if I wanted to. The pains and injuries I suffered in the fight appeared to just fade away, except for the weird feeling in my head… that I was just going to have to do the best I could to ignore.

Within a few seconds it was almost as if the nasty beating the Rogue had just given me had never happened. I sprang lightly to my feet and I spun to face the vamp again, but I seemed to be moving so fast that I no sooner thought of turning to face my enemy, and suddenly I just was there.

The vamp looked startled for some reason, eyeing me like he'd just seen something he wasn't sure about.

I saw him… and suddenly the only thing I wanted was more of his blood!

I ran my tongue along my fangs, and they seemed longer and sharper than usual to me. My tongue found residue of his blood still coating my teeth, and that sharp taste ignited a hot craving like I've never felt before.

I couldn't help but grin at the Rogue as I saw him in a new light.

He was prey… my prey!

He hissed in return and my grin grew even wider at his challenge. It made my heart pound like a hammer on an anvil, and the blood roar in my ears. I raised a hand to point a finger at him and found that even my nails had stretched into longer and harder claws without me realizing it.

"You," I said in a low animal growl. "Let's play."

I didn't even recognize my own voice.

The Rogue hissed, baring his pitiful human-like teeth at me in challenge once more as he crouched down. He spread his arms wide in welcome, his finger twisted into talons of his own.

I wanted to laugh, but instead a snarl ripped from my chest. I was going to tear him apart and gorge on his blood, and then dance around the fire I would make of his remains.

But not before draining every drop!

I felt myself flying, and then I suddenly hit a brick wall… this time the brick way gave way before me.


	26. Chapter 25

Chapter Twenty-Five:

I remember tearing and biting, and being bit again myself… then I could feel the Rogue more strongly in my mind as more of his venom burned through me, moving like lightening now. I felt his thoughts, his driving thirst for Angel's blood, and his desire for my death. I saw the thrill of the hunt through his eyes, of all the other vampires he'd feasted on. And I knew how much he personally preferred the blood of a golden-eyed vamp to a red-eyed one, unlike most other Rogues.

I laughed as I realized… I'd already been feeling all those things even before he bit me this last time!

My claws suddenly got through one of his shoddy attempts to block, and tore out half his throat. The sudden spray of red and the scent of blood fired me, and I ignored the tears his strong fingers were making into my own flesh. I dove in and buried my fangs in the remainder of his throat this time.

My hands found his chin and the back of his head of their own accord. A hard twist and his neck gave a loud snap. His body went limp as I disconnected his brain from the rest of it and he went down hard.

I stayed right with him, locked and gorging myself on his blood as fast as I could take it.

It lasted less than a minute, and then the taste suddenly turned sour in my mouth, like rotting meat, as the vamp crossed over that line, into what passed for the edge of death for them. There he would remain unless one of his coven mates found him and restocked him with human blood. Or someone dismembered and burned the pieces, the bright embrace of fire being the only thing that could push a vampire over the fine line into permanent and everlasting death.

I tore off the Rogue's head in fury for being denied the rest of my spoils. Apparently, the vampire had to be still on the "living" side of the line for their blood to be compatible with me. The body still twitched as I kicked it away.

Rage filled me, and I wanted to scream my fury into mother night.

A tiny sound behind came from me before I could vent my ire, and reminded me that I still wasn't alone.

I spun around toward the girl, who stood with her back against the wall now, doing her best to stay unnoticed and out of the way. Seeing her reminded me of why I was there.

She smelled so wonderful… that my teeth ached, and even though I'd just nearly drained a vampire, I felt thirsty. Dry, thirsty, hungry, in a way that only something that smelled that good could slack.

I wanted to drain her… slowly, so she'd last longer than the other one.

I licked my lips, still tasting the old blood from the other, and I smiled at my luck. I remembered stalking her and her coven of grazers at the nightclub. I vividly recalled the sweet scent of her blood in the night air as Carl and the others slashed opened her throat. The hot jealously that I couldn't be there for a taste of her right away, because I was fighting with the big grazer that got away. The short thrill of the chase almost made up for being denied, but the two males made it back to their vehicle with the rest of their herd to escape us.

I remembered screaming in rage that night too as they made their getaway. They hadn't smelled as good as this little girl did, but they were strong for cattle-feeders, and either one of them would have been a good feeding.

Perhaps the gods are smiling on me this night… because now I have the girl all to myself!

I also recalled going back to the scene of the ambush and finding nothing but a puddle of her sweet blood on the pavement, and a cell phone there. I pocketed the phone before dipping a finger into the blood and bringing it to my mouth… just to get a taste and to lock on her scent.

I shivered again right then, just as I had that night, because the tiny taste had been so exquisite.

Had I a touch lesser dignity, I might have lowered myself to the level of a scavenger and lapped up her blood right there from the ground, but I wanted it straight from the prey… like a proper kill should be.

I found the blood trail, and took off after it, hoping the others had left a little bit of the cattle-lover's blood for me to share in. I vaguely recalled the cell phone ringing, and one of the male cattle-lover's voices desperately calling out for the girl. I remember laughing into the device before I crushed it and threw it away. Knowing that if she weren't dead by then, she would be after I've had my fill of the sweet nectar that flowed coolly through her veins.

I had liked Daemon, and his unknown demise trouble me a little bit, but not like Carl's. Carl and I had been close… even for coven mates and constant hunting partners. Him, Samuel, Harley, and I often stalked our prey together, we were a tight unit, an inescapable team!

The top of the food chain.

I remember finding Carl's headless body in the back of the panel truck, my bloodlust turning to howling wrath, the call bringing the rest of my brothers and sisters running.

Then confusion, really disturbing confusion! Why do I also remember killing Carl?

But that cannot be! The pack does not turn on its own members. Never that, because the power of the pack resides in it's numbers! None of us could find Carl's head, leaving us no choice but to burn his body, least the human's discover it, and through it – us!

I remember Harley refusing to let any of us help with the burning, because he and Carl had been pack mates the longest, even before the change took them. Harley insisted that it was his place to see to our brother's remains and no one else's… not even mine.

And I can remember holding Carl's head in my hands!

Madness! Trickery! That damned cattle-lover is responsible! She must posses a glamour that confuses the mind. I'm ready for it, so her strange skill won't help her now… nothing will!

Gods, how that night we all wanted that little bitch and her coven to pay for Carl… and pay hard!

And now here she was before me… and I had to share the spoils of her blood with no one!

This was going to be a picnic… as well as vengeance.

"Here, piggy, piggy," I called to her, and then I laughed. I felt the drying blood on my chin and cheeks crack and fall away. What a terrifying sight I must make to her.

Good! The little bitch needs to be scared. I wanted her to know what was going to happen to her.

"Kage?" she asked weakly as she started backing away, her grazer mud-colored eyes as big as saucers. Panic tinged the edges of her iris black, and it amused me because she acted as if she knew me.

I grinned again, all sharp teeth.

"No," I said, sneering at the tramp's foolishness. More blood flaked away from my jaw.

I knew she was blocked in. This isle way was a dead-end. And even if she had been able to jump to the rooftops, there was nowhere she could go that I couldn't easily follow.

"Please, don't hurt me," she said, trying to back further away.

"Hurt you?" I snickered, and then lied, "Oh no. Hurting you might ruin everything. I want you to last…a…very…long…time."

Oh, how my fangs itched to bury themselves in that beautiful ivory neck. I wanted to feel that un-life drain out of her and know I caused it. I wanted to take her vitality, and make it mine!

I wanted vengeance for my coven mates who were lost in the hunt for this worthless grazer bitch!

And it looks like tonight I will put paid to that debt she owed. Carl, my friend, my brother, you can rest finally at peace after tonight.

"Please, Kage… don't hurt me," she said again, "You promised that you were my friend."

I laughed out loud at that.

I loved the way she cringed from me, it made the moment that much sweeter. Beside, the idea that I would promise prey anything, let alone not harm them, was amusing.

I just wish the damned grazer would stop calling me by that name like she knew me, that was damned irritating, especially when she should be cowering and begging me for her miserable life, not trying to play stupid games.

She made a sudden run to rush by me, moving at a blur. That was more like it!

I moved faster and was in front of her blocking her escape before she'd gone ten feet.

The look of shock on her face was priceless! It was almost as if she couldn't believe that I had caught her so easily. Calling me by that strange name had probably been her idea of distracting me while she ran. I might have felt insulted if the attempt hadn't been so pitiful.

Stupid grazer!

"Going somewhere?" I asked in contempt.

The girl looked like she had swallowed her tongue, and I just had to chuckle some more at her stunned look. She took several small steps back from me, and I let her take them, just in mild interest in what she planned to do next.

I should have figured. She suddenly turned and ran again, this time in a new direction.

I was off after her once more like a shot. This time instead of passing her and blocking her way again, I backhanded the side of her head as I drew even with her.

The blow took her off her feet, and sent her crashing to the ground.

I halted, and let her slide until a building's wall stopped her.

I closed with her again before she could come to her senses. Even though she was a vampire, I was a bigger and stronger vampire, and I had no fear of her. I hunted her kind – especially those that denied their nature. The law was survival of the fittest and strongest… and I had just proven that to the little bitch but good.

It was only right that she and her sort sustain those of us who embraced what we were.

"Face it," I purred into her face as she shakily got back to her feet. "It's better this way." I ran a clawed finger across her cheek and down her throat, making her winch and shiver under my touch… oh, how her reaction so thrilled me!

I was sort of hoping she'd run again… but by the look in her eyes she'd come to realize how pointless that would have been.

Such a shame I was thinking, as I ran a sharp claw-tip down the front of her dress between her breasts. The silk material parted as easily as wet paper. I gave her some small credit for not flinching right then.

She was so beautiful… such a waste of vampire to be a cattle-lover. She had been light and fast that first night. She would have made a great hunter.

"Offer me your throat… and I'll make it quick," I told her.

I was lying of course. I had no intention of letting her blood spoil too soon. And there was no way she wasn't going to suffer for what she did to Carl.

Still, it was fun sometimes to give them a bit of false hope… before yanking it all away.

The only thing that could have heightened the experience would have been to have sex with her at the same time I was draining her. We occasionally do that with the red-eye vamps we prey upon when the mood takes us, but as a rule, Hunters don't defile themselves by having sex with mud-eyed cattle-lovers, or worse yet… humans!

But I was tempted! I was so very tempted with this one!

"Kage… this isn't you!" she was saying to me.

I smirked. "Kage?" I asked in amusement, "Haven't you learned already that I'm not going to fall for that trick? My name is Markevas, if you must know… and you killed my coven mate, Carl. He was a great hunter and one of my oldest friends. He did not deserve to meet his final death at the hands of lowly vermin like you, no matter how enticing your scent is. And for that, you and yours will pay. This is your last chance… offer me your throat or you'll die hard like you warrant to."

It was a minor pettiness of mine, but I did so enjoy it when they willfully surrendered themselves.

"Look at yourself!" the tiny girl nearly shouted instead.

The audacious little bitch actually had the gall to whip one of those compact make-up mirrors out of her coat pocket and flash it before me… like that would keep what I wanted from me.

I was trying to decide if I should laugh or just rip into her throat and have done with her, when I noticed something that shouldn't be in the reflection.

The bright red eyes of a hunter I recognized, but the face that held them wasn't mine!

"I don't know what you are… but you're becoming him!" my prey yelled at me, while she pointed at something behind me. I was far too experience to fall for that old and pathetic ruse. Besides, it was the damned face in the mirror that concerned me most at the moment. It was wrong!

"This is a trick! One like you probably used on Carl before you killed him," I spat at the girl, remembering the glamour trick she tried to use just moments ago to make me think I remembered killing my pack brother.

I bared my fangs at her in warning. Only… it suddenly occurred to me, I _didn't_ have fangs – like a mongrel, none of my kind did. The face in the mirror did have them and I watched them flash ivory white in the mirror, as the image there seemed to be speaking the very same words that I was.

I suddenly remembered the interloper we had found the girl with had fangs… just like a dog. That same bastard I had just killed by ripping his throat out and drinking his blood. The body lay right behind me, growing cold and stiff on the ground at this very moment!

I suddenly realized it was his face I was looking at in the accursed tiny mirror.

"A trick!" I growled again with more certainty.

"No… not a trick, Kage," she said firmly. "Look behind you."

I snarled and grabbed her by the throat. I'd had enough of this and it was time to feed… and avenge Carl and the wrong done to my coven!

She whimpered as my clawed hand locked around her slim neck, but her eyes never left mine. The dagger-like nails at the ends of my fingers caught my attention as they contrasted against her marble skin.

_I don't have claws like that either! _I never have!

"Look, Kage," she choked out, pointing behind me. "Please look!"

"My name is not Kage!" I roared. It wasn't my name… but at the same time, it was.

I couldn't help myself. I had to look now whether I wanted to or not.

I turned, for the first time feeling fear during a hunt. Fear in a hunter should never be tolerated; it was a sign of weakness in a creature that by right and design was perfect! However, with just one glance that feeling was suddenly justified. Over my shoulder, I saw a headless body and I recognized the clothing and the jacket.

They were mine. If that hadn't been enough proof, then my head laying just a few feet away from my body was proof enough.

"That can't be…" I muttered. I turned back to the girl. Confusion did not begin to describe what I was experiencing.

"I don't know what's happening here. Or what you are," she said again. "But something did happened after you bit him," she continued to explain without me having to ask. "Your eyes changed and you started to act like him." She pointed at the body again. "You even became faster and stronger, like him."

I glanced downward, back to the small mirror she still held in her tiny hand. The features in the face became slightly more familiar, though the red eyes there were all wrong.

I gazed back up at the girl. She still smelled just as tantalizing, and I still ached for her blood. But somehow I no longer view her only as prey now. I looked to her, because I knew she had the answers I needed.

That elfin face gradually had another meaning the longer I started at it, and I suddenly recalled a name to go with it.

"Angel?" I found myself asking. I let go of her neck even though I thought better of it, and took a half step back, even though I still wanted nothing more than to slam her into the wall and feed on her.

She looked a little bit relieved as she nodded her head at me. The movement circulated air in my direction, bringing her scent to me, and I fought the need to rip into her throat with my fangs.

My attention became focused on that inviting pale neck, it took a great effort for me to tear it away and back to her face. The face I had grown so use to seeing… and enjoyed seeing.

_Oh god, Angel? What had I almost done?_

She must have sensed the struggle still going on within me, because she sidestepped away from me one pace.

"What…?" I started to ask if she knew what had happened to me, what was still happening to me?

"I'm sorry," was all she said.

Before I could ask any questions about what she could be sorry for, her arm suddenly whipped out and up. The metal bar that suddenly appeared in her hand impacted with the side of my head, and I briefly saw stars before somebody covered my head with a black, soundproof, blanket.

Did I mention, that unlike full vampires for the most part, I could be knocked out just as easily as any human?

Angel seemed to have figured that out all on her own.

If she were smart… I would never be waking up.


	27. Chapter 26

Chapter Twenty-Six:

I was in fact rudely awaken sometime later to the sound of a screaming and tortured motor, just in time to have my already pounding head bounced off the rather hard metal frame of a door, as the vehicle I was in swerved sharply without warning.

I struck my head on the right side, so I assumed I had to be sitting in the passenger seat. I almost laughed at the sudden thought that I was really in a huge amount of trouble if I was alone and suppose to be driving the speeding vehicle! But the heavy throbbing in my head told me harshly that laughter would be a real bad idea right at the moment.

At least I was feeling more like myself at the moment, besides the splitting headache. And as an added boon, I seemed to be completely alone now inside my mind. Which was a blessing, as I didn't relish the idea of having company right then… especially a Rogue vamp's company.

I told you there was nothing more I hated than being bit by vampires; those mind link side effects are very unpleasant.

Though I could not recall ever being connected so deeply to one that bit me before… before tonight that is.

These last couple of weeks has been one surprise after another.

"What the hell?" I swore as the knock to the noggin eventually forced me from my foggy thoughts toward full consciousness. I next really wished it had left me in la-la-land, because the first thing I saw was the front end of my old Ford passing within inches of the rear bumper of a almost brand new silver Mercury Grand Marques.

I was thrown back toward the middle consul between the seats as the SUV's suspension squatted down on one side, while the vehicle attempted to straighten itself out heading back into a clear stretch of road. The six-cylinder engine roared as it hit the straightaway, and from behind us the driver of the silver Merc blared their horn in protest to the reckless maneuver.

The next thing that assaulted my already overwhelmed senses was the stale putrid blood that was congealing on the front of my good dress up clothes, not that it matter much because the clothing was pretty well trashed at this point of the night, after multiple free-for-alls with Rogues. If the madcap roller-coaster ride I was on didn't make me throw-up shortly, I believed the smell of the rancid blood surely would.

I hoped no traffic cops pulled us over because my current state of disrepair was going to be hard to explain away.

I finally got my swimming eyes under control, and remembered to glance over to the driver's seat to see who exactly was the mad captain of this voyage.

To my dismay, I found Angel at the helm, hunched over with both her hands firmly on the steering wheel. She was sitting almost on the very edge of the seat with her right leg extended all the way out so she could keep the gas pedal pushed to the floor. A quick glance down at the speedometer showed the needle nearly buried at the one hundred and ten miles-per-hour mark on a gage that only went up to one hundred and twenty. I vaguely noticed that her new dress was a ruin, and I figured there was going to be hell to pay for that alone.

However, the look on her face I saw in the flickering road lights I took as one of sheer mad delight. I found myself saying a silent prayer to a god I had given up on talking to over almost a century ago.

"Angel, slow down! You'll kill us both," I mostly groaned to her.

She turned and gave me a crazy half-grin.

"I didn't know I could drive!" she said, and then went back to watching the road. "I'm pretty good at it."

She cut the wheel just then, and the side of my head was reintroduced to the doorframe again. Somewhere behind us another car's horn blared in objection of the stunt driving.

"I don't think I'm in danger of hitting anything."

I groaned inwardly, as I wildly thought to myself there was no way I was going to keep her away from my poor Vette now.

A really dumb worry to have at the current moment, I know.

"Well, I'm in danger of doing something very un-grown-up-like in my drawers if you don't slow down!" I countered. "There's a button on the side of the seat that moves it up, by the way."

"Oh?" she said with a hint of surprise. "I didn't know that."

She reached down and felt along the side of the seat and quickly found the control. The electric motor hummed as the seat moved closer to the steering wheel. Eventually she was able to sit more normally in the seat. "That's much better," she continued, "I wanted to put as much distance between us and that place as fast as possible!"

I looked at the now rain slick roads that were flashing by, and called her comment about not being in danger of hitting anything into question. I reached over my shoulder and snagged the seat belt to draw it over my shoulder and click it in place at seat level.

"Well this is a SUV, not a Formula One race car! Take it easy before you wreck my Explorer… it's the only thing I have for normal driving," I complained.

"This slow piece of junk is the least of our problems," she countered with another quick hard look at me. Gratefully, she did slow down to about ninety miles-per-hour, which made me feel better only because my body wouldn't splatter _as_ far as it would have at one hundred and ten after we hit something solid.

"What the hell was all that about back there? And what the hell are you?" she demanded to know. "I thought for sure you were going to kill me!"

Yeah, I was going to. Lucky me! I could remember that part of the episode with perfect clarity.

I was dreading that question… and 'dread' was way too light of a description for what I was feeling actually. I was really hoping in foolish vain it wouldn't come up, especially while she was rediscovering her driving skills and trying for the land speed record with me in the car.

I found myself hoping her skills were as good as she claimed them to be, as I had no doubt I was going to be pissing her off in one way or another very shortly… and I didn't savor the thought of ending this already _wonderful_ night by winding up as road pâté because she got distracted.

"It's complicated," I said. Crossing my fingers that my simple two-word answer would magically be enough to satisfy her. Right now I had as many questions about what had happened to me as she did… more probably! I was seriously lacking in the answer department at the moment, and the few I did have… well, they amounted to lighting the fuse on a powder keg.

But my simple uninformative answer had been worth a try anyway.

She tisked angrily under her breathe and shot me another hard glare.

"My pale ass!" she growled. "You're one of us! Like me, aren't you? Why didn't you tell me?"

"No… I'm not… not exactly," I grudgingly admitted.

"Then what?" she demanded as she went back to watching the road. Angel made the demand like she was owed an explanation, and expected nothing less.

I guess in a way she was now, our relationship had gone beyond the one of stranger lending a helping hand to another stranger, to one of almost lovers.

"What are you then? With all that's happened to me, you can't possibly expect me to keep trusting you now… if you're keeping that kind of a secret!"

I sighed, so much for trying to salvage my cover. I should have thought about that before I almost let myself get physically intimate with her. Stupid, stupid half-vampire!

Even stupider for a one time enemy of all vampire kind.

"I'm something… different. Can we please wait to hash this all out until we get home?" I asked. "I'd rather not end up as road kill because you were distracted by bad news."

Angel glowered at me for a moment more, but eventually grunted her reluctant acceptance to the compromised.

Her eyes said that I'd better come clean once we were safe… or I'd live to regret it… maybe.

Just peachy.

All the rest of the way back to my place, we remained silent. Though I caught Angel stealing little side-glances at me regularly. I concluded that she didn't feel safe with me now, and having to keep her eyes sometimes on the road instead of me was unsettling her.

Can't say I didn't blame her.

We made it home in one piece, miraculously without being stopped by the police, or crashing and going out in a fiery blaze of glory… which in fact might have been more preferable than what I was facing ahead of me.

Had I a better sense for the dramatic, I might have gotten out and kissed the asphalt-parking pad of my driveway after the wild way Angel had driven my old SUV home. It also hadn't escaped me that she made it back to my place without once having to ask me for directions. Considering recent events, it was at least a slight upside to see that her prior injury wasn't affecting her current memories. And that she hadn't suffered any more damage to herself in the recent Rogue ambush.

She made a point of letting me go first so she could keep me in her sight, following me into the house after I unlocked the back door.

The reek of the vampire blood covering me was overpowering, making it hard for me to think very clearly.

"I have to go change and get out of these clothes," I told her. "I can't… order my thoughts like this."

She merely nodded once, then skirted widely around me to head for the spare bedroom. I waited where I was until she closed the door, and I heard the doorknob lock engage.

This didn't bode well, I silently thought, and then went to my own room.


	28. Chapter 27

Chapter Twenty-Seven:

I was greatly relieved that the vampire girl at least allowed me to change out of my ruined clothes and clean up before interrogating me. In the privacy of my room, after a quick shower, I paused a moment while changing to sit down on my bed to give myself a moment to think. I couldn't help the sick feeling I had in the pit of my stomach, knowing what was coming sometime within the next few minutes.

I also had way too many other things going through my mind at the moment, beside my dreaded confrontation with Angel.

My thoughts keep drifting back to the ambush tonight, because something was nagging at me. Just what were the odds that that same group of Rogues who had first attacked Angel and her coven would jump us tonight? Rogue covens were more often than not slightly larger than most normal vampire groups; they hunted other vampires in packs, more like a pride of lions, so they had to be.

But Seattle was a big city, and I doubted that one group of Rogues could cover that much area and then arrange such a planned ambush that quickly. Their group just possibly couldn't be that big.

I been hunted before by vampires and that sort of organization doesn't happen with only the numbers in a single coven.

It was however possible if you had more than one coven working together for a common goal, which is what my past experience had shown me.

And other covens working with Rogues? That didn't make much sense either.

There was something else going on here that I just couldn't figure out. And something told me I needed to figure it out quick… or our chances of survival were going to take a serious nose-dive.

Perfect! All I had were questions that needed to be answered ASAP. What was going on with these hunter vampires was about third on my list at the moment, right behind, what the hell was happening to me?

I couldn't suppress the shiver I felt as I recalled the events of tonight, and as I considered what I was going to do about the question currently at the top of my list.

How was I going to be able to keep Angel from killing me in the next few minutes after I told her whom I was?

I sighed again heavily, as that feeling of being overwhelmed nearly buried me again. I had never meant for this to happen. I never meant to fall for someone; in fact I had taken great pains all these years to avoid it. And I certainly never meant to fall for a vampire.

But Angel had gotten inside; pass all the defenses that had kept me safe… and my strange life relatively uncomplicated by matters of the heart. I could never afford them with who I had been, and I didn't want them after Stephanie. I had been a fool for ever letting it happen.

Now I loved Angel… and in the next few minutes I was either going to have to kill her, or she was going to kill me. Of that, I was pretty certain.

For the first time, I didn't know if I could kill a vamp that was trying to kill me… not if that vamp was Angel. I didn't know if I even wanted to try.

I found myself regarding both of my hands, my now _normal_ looking hands. I had found out shortly after I had first changed, that my claws could easily tear vampire flesh where my normal fingers wouldn't, not like a real vampire without claws could. It hadn't been much of an advantage to me in the past, because using them would mean I'd have to fight the vamp's fight on their terms. And I'm not strong enough to compete with them on that level, and the few encounters I survived in the early days were more due to luck than anything else.

So I found artificial means to compensate and then my body count really started to rise. I fought with specially made folded steel weapons and devious tricks. Against a full vampire, there was no such thing as a fair fight.

I tried to force myself to picture my natural weapons in my mind, tearing into Angel's flesh… and I shuddered and felt even sicker.

I tried to quit thinking about it, all of it, and nudged myself along. I drew on a pair of old sweatpants over my legs while I chewed over the one last thought I couldn't clear no matter how I tried.

Tonight, I had bitten a vamp for the first time… and drew blood!

I had not been aware that my teeth and fangs could harm a full vampire like my claws could. I just assumed that with their skin it would be equivalent to a normal human biting a rock. Something would have to give and chances are it wasn't going to be the stone. Imagine explaining that one to a dentist.

My fangs I never considered useful beyond the shock and distraction value they inspired in humans and some vamps. I never before thought that they'd actually might be a weapon.

The thought that they could be used that way, made my desire to draw Angel's blood seem even worse… because now, there was no doubt that I could do it if given the chance.

That mental imagine came much to readily, only now I shuddered for a completely different reason. Part of me still wanted to drain her; another new part wanted something different with it, something almost… erotic. A picture of her writhing against me in pleasure as I bit into her pale flesh flashed through my mind's eye, and my good sense told me how wrong that was.

Vampires bit only to feed and there was only one end to that; there was nothing good or pleasurable in it. The vision was nothing but a lie, maybe a fallacy that full vamps held within themselves to cover the grim truth about what they do.

The fact that I could have it myself, perhaps told me that I'm not as fine with what I was as I had thought all this time. Maybe I was twisted, actually broken in some way, and only discovering it now. Maybe if Angel killed me tonight before I did something unspeakable, it would be a good thing?

I pulled on a fairly new t-shirt, because there was no sense going to one's execution dressed too shabbily, and tried not to think about what that Rogue's blood had done to me. It was bad enough when I could feel them in my head because of their venom coursing through my body. Tonight I found it was a true nightmare to actually lose your identity and become them!

Or maybe… it was just my true nature using that as an excuse to reveal itself?

I could only imagine what Angel was thinking of me at this moment. It was sure hard enough having to rethink the self-image I've always had of myself… to think I was closer to vampire than to human.

If I wasn't what I always believed myself to be, than what was I?

There were some hard questions that desperately begged for answers. But right now, they may never be answered, and they might not matter for much longer.

I had an even grimmer task ahead of me that very well might negate the need for answers of any kind.

I still had to go out and face Angel, the girl who I knew I hopeless loved… and tell her the truth about what and who I was.

That just would have been merely difficult and extremely dangerous before tonight. It seemed near impossible now that I realized I might not know the truth about myself either.

All of that didn't matter, I reminded myself needlessly. Because when Angel found out who I really was, about what I had done in my past, she was going to try and kill me.

End of sad story.

When I was finished, I placed pretty much everything I had been wearing into a plastic bag and set it beside my back door, ready to be taken out and burned in a trash barrel tomorrow… if there was a tomorrow that is. I chuckled lowly to myself, thinking that even after all this time, old habits are hard to break. This wasn't the first time I've had to destroy vampire-trashed clothing before.

That last possibly meaningless task done, it was time to buck up and face the music.

I was mildly surprised to find Angel waiting for me in the living room, as I hadn't heard her leave her bedroom.

She had taken the opportunity to clean up and change also, and was now dressed in a new pair of pink sweatpants and an over-large t-shirt with the Pink Panther in a top hat and cane printed on it. These being the only non-designer clothing besides a few nightshirts she had brought on our shopping trip, which she claimed she wanted for just casual lounging around the house.

I could have chuckled again, thinking she looked much too cute to be anyone's executioner.

But the grim fact of the matter was that I knew better, though I wasn't too sure how dignified it would be to be killed by somebody wearing a Pink Panther shirt.

At least it was not how I always picture the way I would die.

She sat on my old couch, with her knees drawn up in front of her in a protective fashion, watching me with weary eyes, the way a house cat might watch a total stranger that was visiting it's owner.

As soon as I entered the room, her scent hit me once more, and I found myself wanting to go for her throat again… in both that savage and erotic ways.

Oh god! What the hell was wrong with me?

She must have sensed something was off beam with me, because she drew herself into a tighter ball on the sofa. A glance at her eyes showed me that her brownish-gold irises were edged with black, not thirsty, but alert and tense like a watch spring that could snap at any moment.

One wrong word, one misinterpreted gesture and this was going to go bad quickly. And that would just be before I got to the part about me killing a few hundred vampires as a vengeful hobby.

I wisely chose to sit across from her in the easy chair farthest away but still facing her. I didn't like this… disturbing need… I had for her, anymore than I liked the edginess between us. Things were going to be difficult enough in the next few minutes without the lust for her blood distracting me on top of it all.

I seriously hope that the bloodlust I was feeling would fade within the next few hours, seeing Angel had mentioned to me on the ride home that she'd taken the precaution of using some scrap wood she'd found to burn the body of the Rogue who bit me, before loading me into the Ford and driving away from the ambush scene.

I suppose I should be grateful that she bothered to take me with her. Anyone else who had been lied to, attacked, and almost been bitten and drained by a supposed friend, might have left me there at the mercy of any Rogues that might have shown up afterwards.

A even greater part of me was severely troubled to realize that part of what I liked about Angel's scent was the way it spoke to my, before now, buried bloodlust.

I had been attracted to Angel's blood from the very night we met. I just didn't know it then.

It distressed me beyond words to find out I might be actually no better than a Rogue!

I wasn't in any possible way prepared to have this talk, and feeling the way I currently was, I was in no great hurry to start it.

Angel and I spent several moments in silence, just regarding each other from across the living room. Her gaze was unblinking, and so steady that I felt like she was taking me apart cell-by-cell to examine me. When she was done, I wondered if she would impose her sentence on me without asking any questions at all, and go directly to being my executioner?

Finally, she broke the quiet stalemate between us.

"At first," she began softly. "I couldn't quite figure out what was going on, or what I was seeing. I mean… you don't smell like one of us, but you don't really smell like one of them either, a human I mean. I just thought, 'well, okay, that's just the way Kage's scent is, it's unique and that's all'. So I ignored it."

I didn't say anything. I couldn't think of anything to say at this point anyway, so I just let her speak her piece.

"I thought you were the one person, human or vampire, I could without a doubt trust in all this," she continued, "You're the one person who hasn't tried to kill me or trick me. You saved me and took care of me… and I thought you were looking out for my best interest. Now I don't know what I should think… or if I should keep trusting you?"

"I have my reasons for doing as I did," I finally said.

"And I want to hear them, all of them. I want to give you the benefit of a doubt, I really do… but I don't know if I can," she said. "The first thing I want to know, what exactly are you? You're obviously not human, and you say you're not vampire… and I'm really not sure what a 'Were' is. Are you one of them?"

Here it goes, it was all or nothing now, and I wasn't counting too much on this all ending very well.

"No, I'm not a werewolf, or what they call a skin-walker. I'm something… that's caught halfway between vampire and human. I'm not fully either," I told her.

She started at that. Angel then narrowed her eyes at me, trying to determine if I was toying with her.

"So is that why the teeth and the…" she dropped off the sentence, but curled her fingers into talons to indicate she was asking about my claws.

"Yes," I responded. "The vampire researcher who wrote that manuscript that I've been using to help treat you, suggested that I'm fixed in some early form of vampire, before they evolved to better blend in with the human races. His theory was that the vampire change happens much like the gestation of a human fetus, where the fetus travels through various stages of evolution. At one point it has gills, at another a tail, and then it goes on and develops into a modern human. The change for a vampire happens in a similar way, only much quicker, over a period of about three days. For me, the change from human toward vampire was more gradual and I stopped and froze here… into what I am today."

She appeared to be processing that new information over for a few seconds.

"I want to hear more about this condition of yours later," she said, and I nodded. "But right now I want to ask… is this secret you been keeping from me the reason why the other night, in the shower… that you wouldn't?" she inquired somewhat delicately.

"Yes, it's a good part of it," I admitted.

Angel cocked her head slightly and raised one of her perfect eyebrows a bit at me.

"But… why?" she asked.

"Isn't that reason enough?" I asked.

"Well… it's not good that you kept it a secret," she started, "But it doesn't really change who you are. It didn't mean we couldn't have gotten… closer. In fact, it should have been easier because it would have meant I wouldn't have had to worry about accidentally hurting you. I just don't understand."

I frowned a bit, but told her the truth.

"Because I didn't want to go _there_ with this lie between us," I said. "You don't know how long, or how difficult this had been for me. I didn't want it to be that way. The part I said about you having become important to me… that was never a lie. I meant it and I still do."

She actually blinked in surprise, probably going off-track and figuring that there was something wrong with a guy who turns down free sex for ethical purposes.

Hell, even I still partly thought there was something severely wrong with that too.

"How… just how old are you?" she inquired next, dropping the shower topic. That might seem an odd question for anyone to ask at this point, unless that person doing the asking was a vampire.

"One-hundred and twenty years old this year," I answered.

"And how long have you been like this?"

"Ninety-five years… it's a very long story."

She crossed her arms and tapped the fingers of her right hand along her forearm as she thought over what I had told her.

"Again…why did you keep all this from me? I don't see it as any big deal," she said. "Why go through this pointless charade? Forgetting the love making part… all this time I could hear your heartbeat and I still had to keep reminding myself _constantly_ that you were just human, and I worried so much that I might hurt you by accident if I wasn't careful for every waking moment. Do you know how stressful that is everyday? Why would you put me through all this?"

Her eyes were hard, but it was the hardness of irritation. The type somebody had when they were placed under needless anxiety and just discover that there was never a necessity for it. She had a valid grievance, I never considered she might have been _constantly_ reminding herself I was human fragile. Every move she made around me had to be restrained, every touch had to be carefully calculated, with never a lack of vigilance or chance to truly relax on her part.

I had been a fool to never consider looking at life from her prospective, and thinking about her challenges of living in close proximity to a human… all while trying to recover some semblance of health for herself.

There was nothing I could do at the moment to address that, so I continued with my confession, as much as I didn't want to.

"You haven't heard everything," I told her. "You now only know what I am. You do not yet know why I became what I am. And you don't know yet… who I once was."

"I'm listening," Angel said, with gravid attention.

"As I said, it is a very long story," I repeated. Grasping at any reason to hold off telling the rest of the story for even a few more seconds.

Angel wasn't put off by the prospect of a lengthy tale as much as I was, and I was especially put off of telling this story to this particular vampire.

"Tell me, tell me it all," she said, and it was half demand, half interested request this time.

So for the next half an hour, I told her my story with no interruptions and no more cover-ups, though I could see her making mental notes of questions to ask me later… or perhaps she was simply memorizing my numerous crimes against her kind?

I held nothing back and told her of everything I had done… and who I was as far as the world of vampires was concerned.

She listened at the worse parts with pretty much a blank face, which I was sure didn't bode well. I was concentrating so much on her features that I failed to notice that her posture eventually unwound and she now had both feet on the floor and was leaning toward me to clearly hear every word I spoke as I came to the end of my tale.

I again considered she might be listening so intently so she could mark my every crime, to also perhaps, justify to herself the taking my life when my confession was finished.

After I noticed, I immediately also considered that the change in her position would also let her spring an attack on me more effectively, now that she knew who and what I was.

I waited for it and wondered what I would do when the moment came, while she silently regarded me, still showing no emotion or a sign as to what she was thinking.

"Is that everything?" she asked a moment later, even her tone neutral and giving me not a single clue.

"Yes, that's all of it. I've held nothing back now," I replied, totally honest with her for the first time. I leaned back in my chair, both feet flat on the floor, both arms along the armrests, feeling like I was now sitting in the death-seat of some prison, awaiting for my judgment to be carried out by the warden.

At any second I fully expected her to lunge at me, and Angel would be fast and brutal because she would be expecting a battle to the death now that she knew me for what I was.

I found I had no will to oppose her, I knew I could never harm that beautiful soul that had touched me and in some ways brought me back to life again.

Strangely, I discovered I was okay with it. If I was to die, I was glad it would be by her hand… and not at the will of some Volturi assassin, or in a back alley with some other vampire I had finally foolishly misjudged.

I relaxed, and sat back and waited.

It wouldn't be a bad way to die.


	29. Chapter 28

Chapter Twenty-Eight:

Instead of attacking right away, Angel pondered what I had said for a few seconds more and then relaxed, unexpectedly leaning back into the rear cushions of the couch to almost copy my posture.

She looked at me, and then frowned deeply.

I flinched, because somehow she made that frown seem far worse than if she had gone for my throat.

"What hurts me the most," she told me after a few seconds of silent torture, taking her time with her words. "Is that you didn't trust me enough to tell me all of this sooner, no matter how bad you thought it all was. It makes me wonder… what you really think of me? What kind of a person do you think I am?"

Okay… that really surprised me… floored me, actually.

I was expecting a vicious attack at this point, not a continuing heart-to not beating-heart talk. I had no clue where to go from here, as my up till then positive view of the future hadn't included this scenario.

"I think you're the most truly wonderful soul I've encountered in a very long time," I replied, deciding the truth was still the best route. Seeing half-truths and cover-ups weren't really working all that well for me up to this point. "Which is a major reason why I was reluctant to tell you everything. I didn't start out expecting… I would end up feeling this way. The rest of it was I wasn't sure how you would react once you knew everything, but I was almost sure it would be in a bad way. And I didn't want that after I came to know you better."

"Well, keeping secrets like that isn't the best way for us to go about what's going on here," she added. "This isn't going to work if we do."

"So…" I said, totally missing her meaning, "You're not _angry_ with who I use to be? With the things I've done?"

"Do you really think I'm naive enough to think that the world of vampires is perfect? That we're all just harmless creatures? Hello? Have you not been paying attention to the ones that have been trying to kill me? To kill the both of us? Do you think humans would see us all as fluffy and cuddly while we open up their veins for a drinky-poo? You did what you did back then for a good cause. Out of devotion for the woman you loved, and the only happiness you had that was taken from you in such a horrifying way. How can I think that's wrong in any way… especially when you've placed whatever peace you've finally found for yourself at risk to help me?"

I sat for a moment, and deeply considered her words.

"And besides," she added a few seconds later, "For all we both know… maybe the real me isn't as good of a person as you think. I could have spent a long time harming people before I changed my diet." She looked at me with a bit of worry in her eyes. "To be fair, I have to consider the possibility maybe I'm not as good as you seem to think I am, so how could I ever judge what you did?"

I gazed at her, into her eyes… and refused to believe that possibility. I had known true evil in my time, I had walked that edge and had a taint of it myself, and Angel was anything but. She had killed, without doubt. That goes hand-in-hand with the nature of being a vampire. But I doubted she had done so for the sake of malevolence.

Only a vampire with kindness in her soul could look passed what I had done… and understand, if not forgive.

Okay, so Angel seemed to be set on making a career out of confusing me. She was the one with the head injury and she was seeing things more clearly and making better sense of them than I was. Me… the one of us with the supposed intact noggin.

She gazed a me for a few more seconds and then asked, "Another thing I don't understand is: you were sick and dying when you were still human. You could have let nature take its course and possibly been reunited with your Stephanie in some afterlife. Why try and become a vampire, and remain apart from her all this time? And worse yet, maybe forever?"

That was a question I sometimes still ask myself, and I've been doing so for close to a hundred years. The answer I come up with has always been the same. And in all this time I've managed to come up with nothing better in way of a logical and sane explanation.

"It was a rash decision, and I really didn't think it through," I explained. "I suppose at the time I wanted vengeance for her… and myself, more than I wanted to go to my rest and a possible reunion. I couldn't see passed my rage and anger… and I wasn't able to do so for a very long time."

Angel thought my answer over for a moment.

"I don't know if that was as irrational as you say, or if it took more courage to do what you did," she finally said. "I think if I loved somebody as much as I think you did her, vengeance wouldn't matter as much to me as going to wherever they where to be with them again… if I had the choice. I don't think I'd have the strength to remain apart from them."

I didn't know how to tell her at the moment that I thought that decision she would have chosen made her the stronger of the two of us.

"Maybe I should have let my illness take me," I said instead. "In my foolishness and ignorance, I killed indiscriminately. I killed as many of your people who weren't at odds with mankind as I did those that preyed on humans. I didn't care, as long as I was killing vampires. I never bothered to step back for one moment to make sure I was doing the _right_ thing. To make sure the _right_ people were paying for what happened to Stephanie and me. All vampires were monsters as far as I was concerned and needed to be wiped off the face of the Earth. And then I found out how wrong I was. Now… I think maybe it was I who was the real monster."

"You couldn't have known then," Angel tried to tell me. She took my hand in hers and began to gently rub it between her palms, and attempted to use the coolness of her skin to soothe me. I drew my hand away, thinking that I didn't deserve her understanding or compassion.

"That doesn't excuse it," I said. "All these years I've known the magnitude of the mistake I'd made, but its never been fully driven home until now… over these last few weeks. Until I met you."

Angel pulled back a bit as I confessed that, and I quickly wondered if I'd gone too far somehow and ruined the truce we up till that point had.

She pulled her hands back close to her, and suddenly looked very hurt.

"Are you saying… that you don't want me here?" she asked.

As usual, and in typical male fashion, I'd made a mess of things and not explained myself very clearly. I'd left her thinking that I considered her opening my eyes and forcing me to truly confront my mistakes was a bad thing. When in actuality, nothing could be farther from the truth. I had been frozen, numb, and unwilling to face my mistakes. Acting like they never happened, or they had happened to someone else. Thanks to her, I was working through my darkness and the burden now that I could finally face it. It would only be in that fashion I could begin to truly heal myself.

Because of Angel, I had a chance to maybe feel alive once again.

"No, that not it at all!" I hurried to correct, and was glad to see the wounded look fall from her features. "I meant, since you've been here and I've gotten to know you… I keep thinking what would have happened if you had been one of the ones I killed all those years ago. It hurts to think about what I would have lost, and I never would have known I had lost something… that's turned out to be so good for my life. Then I think about all those others, and I wonder how many like you are not around now because of me… and the burden becomes overwhelming sometimes. But it's a good thing… because it's made me feel again."

Her face softened, and her eyes had a new look in them. Her hand leaped forward with vampire quickness and trapped mine before I could pull it away again. She drew it to her chest to place it over her silent heart and covered it with both arms, as if she were protecting something precious. Her other hand came up to gently caress my cheek.

I just still didn't really understand why she didn't hate me for who I had been.

"The one thing I have learned in the time since waking up here is that, life isn't fair, not for humans or vampires," she told me. "Bad things happen, and its what you make out of them that counts. You've made mistakes and the only one who can really forgive you for them is you! I only know, that when I was in a bad way, you were there for me… a vampire you didn't know or have a reason to risk yourself for… and maybe still had every reason to hate and not to help at all. That is what really matters to me, and to me – that's _who_ you are. I can't place blame on you. If I had been in your place at that moment when you decided to turn yourself, who's to say? I just might have made the same choice, and done the very same things you did. So how could I ever find fault with something like that?"

"How could you possibly not?" I blurted out a little too strongly, before putting much thought into the comment. I could only keep thinking, _what if she had been one of the ones I killed all those years ago_. The idea of a world without her in it was unimaginable to me now. She just didn't understand how much that concept hurt, and because of my actions, there had to be countless others out in the world living that nightmare without their own Angel… because I had blindly killed them.

It hurt so much that I hated myself and I saw no logical reason why she shouldn't also!

Angel really had me deeply confused at the moment. Her golden eyes became as big as saucers with shock at my outburst, then they narrowed a bit and she scowled deeply at me. It was at that point I wondered if I would ever learn to shut-up while I was ahead of the game.

I somehow doubted it though.

"You're an idiot!" she suddenly announced, as she tossed my hand away from her like it had suddenly turned into something unpleasant.

It was my turn to blink in surprise. Okay, yeah… I agree I can be an idiot at times – that's certainly never been a secret, but I failed to see exactly how I was being so at this particular point in time. My comment may have been unwise, but I felt I had a valid point still.

"And why exactly is that?" I inquired cautiously, because when you were drawing a blank on any matter, the only thing that you can do to clear it up is ask where it was that you went wrong.

She huffed and crossed her arms in front of her.

"You're an idiot for asking how I can fault you," she answered. "Haven't you figured out yet that I love you?"

That hit me like a ton of bricks.


	30. Chapter 29

Chapter Twenty-Nine:

About twenty minutes later, after numerous apologizes – mostly on my part – we were both now sitting on the sofa. Angel leaned up against me, her tiny frame filling my arms as she contemplated all that I had told her. I was still somewhat in a state of shock. I had expected for so long that Angel and I would have battled to the death after she had learned the truth about me and who I was.

Instead, she had told me she loved me.

And very shortly afterward forgiven me for being a dimwitted male.

I was privately relieved when she didn't seem to expect me to reciprocate the sentiment… and given my current track record for the night, I most likely would have screwed that up as well, so for the moment it was probably for the best that I didn't try.

I already knew damn well anyway, that somewhere along the line I'd fallen head-over-heels for the girl. I'd been resisting that feeling almost since the moment when she first woke up in my home and didn't kill me.

The part about her not yet recovering her memory, and not really knowing who she was, was giving me pause. I kept wondering when it all did finally come back to her – would she still be the same Angel?

And would she still feel this way about me?

Would I still feel the same way about the real her?

Damn! This was worse than trying to figure out a Star Trek time travel paradox. Where was Mr. Spock when you needed him?

I could use a little logic about now.

Angel sat beside me, idly running one cool hand up and down my forearm, tentatively asking me questions about my early past, and about Stephanie. Those last questions she told me I didn't have to answer if I didn't want to, but they focused mainly on what sort of person she had been, and I found myself more than willing to reminisce those good things with Angel, it almost made my heart feel a bit lighter sharing them with her.

"I feel for you, I really do," she told me when I was finished telling her all I could bear myself. I grasp her hand in sincere gratitude for her ear and understanding. That only reinforced my belief that Angel indeed had the soul of one of her namesakes.

"Will you tell me one more thing?" she asked after a few moments of companionable silence between us.

"If I can," I answered, willing to tell or give her anything within my power now.

She gazed up into my eyes with her big soft golden ones.

"Will you tell me your real name now?" Angel requested of me.

I hadn't expected that question, and I felt my face fall and my little measure of happiness fade. Angel's own features copied mine, as she had to be thinking she'd asked the wrong thing of me for some unknown reason.

"I'm sorry…" she began.

"No," I stopped her. "You didn't do anything wrong." I said.

"Then… what's the matter?" she asked with deep concern.

I looked at her, knowing I had a lost look on my face.

"I… I can't remember it," I told her in frank honesty. It had been so long since I had even thought about what my true name had been.

Angel looked stunned for a moment, then her honey-colored eyes filled with compassion.

"Just like me," she breathed in wonder, as she stroked the hair at my temple to soothe me.

"No," I told her. "I can remember almost everything, but the name my parents gave me. I reach back and try to remember it, but its like I hit a brick wall. Its just not there anymore."

And that was indeed the truth. Sometime within a few years of becoming a half-vampire, my true name had slipped away from me. Perhaps becoming mixed in with all the aliases I had taken on and now unrecognizable… buried and lost to me in time.

When I first realized long ago, that I was having trouble recalling my given name, I had always thought it didn't really matter, for that person was no longer. That sickly man had died in that park alongside of his love and joy, Stephanie.

He was far better off left at peace there with her.

Another more logical part of me always considered over time I refused to let myself remember, because doing so would also bring back the pain of her loss, letting it touch me all over again.

Angel must have instinctively read the answer without me having to explain it. Because the next think I knew there were tears of venom in her eyes, tears of grief that she shed for me!

She wrapped her arms around me and cried, and I clung to her just as tightly in return. She said she cried in sorrow for a dead man, but also in joy because behind him, he had left her me.

Angel later hugged herself to me, which was very pleasant. Her head was lying on my chest as her fingers idly picked away at imaginary specks lint on my shirt.

"So you were turned when you were twenty-five," she asked, speaking her thoughts.

"Yes," I confirmed, curious as to what was going on in her mind. "I left my human life behind just a few months after I turned twenty-five-years-old."

She looked up at me, and her golden eyes narrowed in deliberation.

"But you look…" she started to say.

"I know," I cut her off, but not meaning to be rude actually. "I look older… maybe somewhere in my mid-thirties. Unlike you, I age… but very slowly compared to a human. I figure in the last 95 years I've physically aged roughly about ten years. You already know that my heart still beats because you can hear it, and that I still need to breath. I'm not as strong or as fast as you, but I don't need to live on blood. And direct sunlight doesn't effect me like it does you."

She nodded to indicate that she remembered all of that.

"I have one foot in the human world, and the other foot in your world, I guess," I finished.

Her hand stopped fidgeting with fake lint, and moved upward to my chest to finally come to rest over my slowly beating heart.

"If you're aging, that means you'll die someday… doesn't it?" she wanted to know.

I couldn't help but shrug. "I think so. Probably yes," I said. "The fact of the matter is I really don't know for sure what will eventually happen. I can only assume that like a full human I will some day get old, my body will wear out, and I will die."

She didn't seem to like that thought much. She looked up at me silently for a moment, she eyes locked with mine. Then her hand came up and brushed my cheek on its way to gently cup the back of my neck.

She slowly pulled me down as she turned her face up to meet mine.

Her kiss was as soft as any human woman's, but I had the idea that there was a underlying hint of anxiety in it, born of the new information that my lifespan was going to be far shorter than hers.

Still any kiss from Angel was a far cry better than fighting Angel in my book. I hugged her to me and brought my own hand up to caress her cool marble cheek.

Hoping she took the gesture as my way of telling her things would be all right.

She sighed deep in her chest, and began kissing me in a slightly different way.

I wasn't going to be complaining about that either!

When she finally broke the embrace, she looked back up at me and I could tell she had an idea. Even while she had been kissing me, her mind had been working on what she considered a quandary.

"What if," she began, "You were to be bitten again? If you absorbed enough venom, maybe the change will start again and this time run its full course… making you fully one of us."

I shook my head.

"It won't work," I told her, seeing her face fall.

"How do you know?" Angel asked.

"I've been bitten twenty, maybe thirty, times by vampires over the course of my new life. The only thing that happens is that some sort of physic link develops between the vampire and me. I can feel them – what always seems to be their worse side, their emotions, in the back of my mind. I know what they want, and how they feel when they get it. Up till now it seemed a one-way link as far as I could tell. The bond lasts until the vampire is destroyed, then it stops almost as if a string connecting us had been cut."

Angel looked slightly stricken. She had seen what had happened to me tonight when the Rogue bit me. She had seen me lose myself, my identity, to the Rogue's animal side.

"That must be horrible!" she cried.

"Its not pleasant, hearing and feeling them," I agreed. "But tonight was something different. I've never experience that sort of a deep connection in the past," I continued in open thought. "It's always been I could just sense them in my mind, I've never entirely been taken over like that before. Like I lost who I was."

"Well, you were gone for a while there, and one thing did happen tonight that you haven't mentioned doing before," she put in.

I looked at her in bewilderment, raising one eyebrow because I hadn't a clue as to what she was getting at.

"You bit that Rogue too," she finally filled in. "And drank his blood."

I had forgotten about that over the last hour or so. Just after I had bitten the Rogue in return, I recalled the strange lightheadedness now, and then suddenly being him.

"You're right, I was thinking about that earlier," I told her. "It was just after that it all turned… weird."

"Why do you suppose that happened?" inquired Angel.

"I really don't know," I answered. "He bit me, and I could feel the venom burning through me like always. He started choking me with his arm, so I bit it because it was about the only thing I could think to do. Then somehow the next thing I knew I was him. I knew every thing he knew, remembered everything that he remembered… even chasing you that first night."

Angel shivered as I described what I saw in the Rogue's memories.

"You don't have to remind me," she said. "I was startled when I saw your eyes had turned from that silver color to crimson, just like a vampires. And it took me a few moments to figure out that you had taken on that Rogue's characteristics just after you both bit each other. You were a lot faster and stronger, just like a normal vampire. Then when you began talking about his coven mate that was killed like you were really him it all clicked for me, and I knew I had to distract you long enough to get my hands on that piece of pipe. I'm sorry about having to do that, by the way."

"Yeah, thanks for not taking my head completely off," I quipped. "I know you had to do it," I added a few seconds later to let her know I wasn't angry or anything, "I really wanted at that time to tear your throat out and drain you. I'm glad you were able to stop me because I don't think I could have lived with myself if it had happened."

She nodded, but didn't add anything more for the moment.

"At least we have an idea on what might have happened to you now," she offered a moment later.

"Perhaps we do," I agreed.

Angel nodded her understanding, and then returned to our former topic by asking, "That was really him making you feel that way, right? You don't still want to bite me, do you?"

I shuttered, that impulse wasn't so bad now. I still wanted to taste Angel, but not strictly for the purpose of feeding. I was doing my best to try and ignore it.

And Angel being so close to me was making it a bit hard. Still, I'd just made her a promise so I didn't lie.

"Yes… I do," I admitted.

Angel's eyes suddenly grew wide again, and she stiffened a bit in my arms.

"But not to feed," I added in a hurry to clarify. I in fact still wanted to bite Angel very badly; her wonderful scent was intoxicating to say the least. Yes, I wanted to bury my fangs in her flesh. I wanted her blood… but only to savor, not to sedate a hunger. I couldn't help but to replay the shower scene in my mind, I wanted her that way too… all of it at the same time.

But I couldn't find the words to tell her of these strange new desires; at least not in any words that I thought wouldn't scare her. Of course, now that I was the only one residing in my mind at the moment, I never wanted to do anything that would harm her.

While this was all going through my head, Angel was blinking at me in surprise now.

"Oh?" she said at first, with maybe a tiny bit of alarm. She thought a moment and then got a look of sudden understanding. "Oh!" she repeated with a far different reflection to it.

She actually purred next, and then leaned in to give me a hug that nearly fractured a few of my ribs. I was too startled at her reaction to complain about the discomfort for the moment.

Angel looked back up at me a few seconds later, then relaxed and smiled.

"I want to bite you too," she said in a low silky tone.

It was my turn again to be dumbfounded and alarmed, because that wasn't something I wanted to hear, but the girl cuddled her sleek body closer to me and derailed that train of thought.

I was very bewildered as to why Angel suddenly became very untroubled after my admission however. When I could think straight again, I was even more troubled that Angel wanted to bite me in return! The last thing I wanted was to be bitten by a vampire, any vampire, even Angel!

The after effects were just too unpleasant, and the cure rather more so, when considering the vampire in question was someone I'd grown to deeply care about.

Angel sensed my sudden discomfort with the idea.

"Umm… I'm really not sure, and this is only intuition, but I think biting goes hand-in-hand with sex for us," she explained. "I only know that when I think of being with you, I sort of want to taste you a little bit, but I think I can control the urge if I had to. Is it that way with you?"

I nodded. "Except for the control part, that I'm not too sure of," I added. She looked a bit surprised at that admission, but didn't comment on it.

Then it hit me, I just might have stumbled upon something that simply amounted to vampire foreplay. So maybe it wasn't as bad as I thought it was.

Either way, things just got a bit more interesting for us.

With those things now out in the open between us, Angel and I found we had a new dilemma on our collective hands. Actually carrying out our desires was going to be a problem.

We both admitted that if we bit each other, neither one of us was exactly positive if we could stop once it started, despite good intensions.

There was also the problem that we knew for sure that if Angel bit me, I was going to absorb some of her venom, and that would leave me psychically linked to her.

And Angel agreed with me that just might be a predicament considering what I just went through with the Rogue. That relieved me considerably; as for as much as I cared for her, I didn't relish the thought of being linked to her, knowing from passed experience how unpleasant it had been, and that the only way for me to break it was to kill the vamp that had bitten me.

Angel didn't say anything, but I'm sure that detail was also on her mind as well.

She was also disappointed, because finding out I was half-vampire meant she wouldn't have to be as careful during physical love making as she had originally considered she would have to be, when she thought I was only human.

I had to remind her that I was _only_ half-vampire, which still meant she could break me if she became too distracted. After a short debate she grudgingly amended her belief to she wouldn't have to be _as _careful as she originally thought, but still careful to some degree.

Which made me feel a little better, as if this ever came around, I'd sure hate to be loved to death by accident.

We ended up agreeing that until we could solve these minor situations, it would be best not to act on our desires. As much as I wanted nothing more than to be close and intimate with Angel, I was kind of glad I was again off the hook for a moment, as I still have misgivings about Angel not having her full memory back yet.

I have to admit, if she didn't get it back soon I didn't know how much longer I could keep myself from giving in to what I wanted… broken bones and damaged spine be damned!

The night ended with us retiring to bed, promising that nothing more than the normal cuddling would be taking place until we drifted off to sleep. However the stolen kisses added a delightful thrill to the matter for a short while.

There was nothing like tempting fate and dancing on the edge, trusting in the other to bring us back should we tempt a bit too long or dance a step too close to the abyss.

The game was foolish, and dangerous… but being a vampire had never been a safe game. Regardless of the risks, I felt the bond with Angel growing stronger.


	31. Chapter 30

Chapter Thirty:

Ronald Jablonski smiled at the bored young woman behind the counter as she pushed the document and his few dollars in change back to him. The jaded Department of Motor Vehicles worker didn't bother to return his friendly gesture. Instead the dark-haired woman continued to look detachedly remote as she glanced over his shoulder and called the next person in line up to her window, already dismissing Ron from her mind as he turned and walked away with his newly acquired prize.

Ronald didn't take the lack of response personally, but he did idly wonder if it would have made the woman's job slightly more exciting if she had known she had just assisted him in saving the life of a beautiful young girl from a fate worse than death?

He unfolded the document he had just purchased. It had cost him a little over ten dollars out of pocket, and the long, drawn out bother of having to fill out a Freedom of Information Act form, but it was all money well spent.

The top line, held the information on the license plate number he'd asked to have looked up. The next part held the address he was looking for. He was also pleased to see that the vehicle registration had just been renewed a few months before, so that improved the chances that the address was still good.

"J.A. Archer," he read aloud from the report. Not much of an impressive name for a bloodthirsty monster, he thought. It might have been better, maybe more sinister, if it been something with a more European sound to it.

The address was located somewhere in the Beacon Hill suburb, not too far away actually. He now had a name and location to began looking for the vampire. Hopefully it would be as easy as that, as he really didn't have that much cash left to him for gas money for an extended search… and his mother became very aggravated with him when he didn't replace what fuel he used in her car.

He tried not to think about the indignity of a vampire slayer having to use his mom's wheels. He kept telling himself it only matter that he got the job done and saved the girl… not how he got there!

If luck and God were on his side, this address would indeed be the monster's current lair, and not a false led – which was still a possibility despite the newness of the registration. Most night creatures were supposed to be crafty and shifty after all.

He checked his watch, and estimated that he had just over a day and some odd hours left to him to rescue the girl before the three-day time limit had expired and her soul was lost forever. He had most of the equipment he needed ready to go, most of which had cost him almost his entire last paycheck. Fighting evil it turned out, could get expensive. Especially when you only had a job that paid minimum wage plus tips.

All that was left for him to do now was stop by Saint Matthew's Church on the way home and fill some bottles with Holy Water, and he would be finished with his preparations.

He pictured the tiny dark-haired damsel in his mind once more. She had been the most beautiful girl he had ever seen. Not even the stuck-up cheerleaders at school could hold a candle to her.

Ron hoped that she would be impressed by his bravery once she realized he had risked his life to rescue her from the hands of a monster.

"Don't worry," he murmured to the image of the girl in his mind. "Ron-J is on the way to save you."

He got into his mother's car, thinking he would strike a few hours before sunset tonight.


	32. Chapter 31

Chapter Thirty-One:

Angel giggled as I came up behind her and slid my arms around her slim body. I pushed my face through her spiky dark-hair to nuzzle the side of her neck just below her tiny ear. A deep inhale and my head started to swim with her scent.

She set the jug down on the counter and wrapped her arms around mine to hug them to her, pinning my forearms in place with light vampire strength.

"Are you reconsidering the biting thing?" she purred, as she pressed herself back against me.

"No," I chuckled, thinking this might have been the scene between any typical couple at home, if it wasn't for the fact that Angel was pouring cattle blood into her travel mug.

"That's too bad," she quipped. "But if you don't stop that, I might go back on my promise and bite you! A girl can only take so much teasing you know."

"I shall consider myself warned," I said, as I reluctantly let her go. I smiled at her and considered I liked this new freedom between us now that there were no more secrets.

She chuckled herself while she went back to preparing to pop her mug into the old microwave to heat.

The homey scene was interrupted by the sound of the front doorbell; the laughter and good cheer seemed to drain from the room, as we both silently recalled the events of the night before. The attack was just too fresh in our minds for us not to immediately think about.

Angel glanced questioningly at me, plainly asking with her eyes, who I thought it might be?

I shrugged at first, trying to play it light because I was drawing a blank on any possible answer, and then I checked my watch.

"It's a little early," I said with some relief after thinking about it a little more. "But it's probably the paperboy. Today's the day he usually collects."

Angel's eyes relaxed as well, as she finally recalled that bit of weekly routine also.

"I'll take care of it," I said needlessly as I turned and headed for the front hallway.

She gave me a nod and a tight smile. I returned a bigger smile to let her know I wasn't worried. I doubted that the Rogues from the night before could have followed us home all the way from downtown Seattle… especially the way she had driven!

I did however take the precaution of checking before opening the front door.

It looked like only a lone young person, as I suspected it might be, standing outside when I peeked through the door window. Satisfied, I opened the entrance and upon closer inspection I realized the kid standing there wasn't our regular paperboy at all.

The redheaded boy standing on my front porch did look vaguely familiar; I just couldn't place him at the moment so I assumed he was one of the substitute delivery carriers that sometimes took the route.

He was dressed in a black turtle-neck shirt and a pair of camouflaged battle-dress uniform pants, probably recently purchased from a military surplus store if I were to judge by the sharp chemical smell of manufacturer's cleaners still clinging to the garment.

"Can I help you," I asked after a few seconds when the kid didn't announce what I owed on the paper bill as soon as I opened the screen door. Instead, he stared at me with his eyes just about popping out of his head… almost as if he were surprised to see me answer the door.

Strange behavior without a doubt, as I didn't know what else you could expect when you knock on someone else's front door except for them to answer it? As I didn't readily recognize the kid as our regular paperboy, I thought perhaps he was still new and not use to asking people for money to pay their bill.

The boy in fact had slung over his shoulder what appeared to be an old canvas paperboy's carrying bag, though it did not carry the local newspaper's logo. One of his hands was tucked deep inside the sack, leaving me to believe next that he might not be my carrier after all, but might perhaps be selling subscriptions to some other local news rag.

"What's taking so long?" I heard Angel inquire from within the house. The girl's voice seem to mobilize the lad, as he blinked once and suddenly became animated.

"Y-Yes," the boy finally answered me with a cheery smile that showed all his teeth. But there was still an odd quiver underlying the tone of his voice, almost as if he were greatly nervous.

He suddenly yanked his hand from the bag and thrust something long and dark into my face. I flinched automatically and pulled back. "You can die unclean beast!" the boy cried weirdly.

"What's going on?" I then heard Angel ask from somewhere closer behind me now.

I didn't have time to answer her. I drew my head back until finally I was able to focus on what the boy was brandishing in my face with his shaky hand, and I realized it was a wooden cross of all things.

"What…?" I begin to ask because I thought I misheard the kid, and then I started to wonder if he was going door-to-door peddling religious items.

The redhead boy's other hand suddenly flashed out while I was focusing on trying to form a polite way to ask him to go away, and I felt something wet slap me in the face.

"Be gone, demon from hell," the child yelled next. I backed up another step into my house, as the liquid ran down my face and into my eyes, some of it also finding its way into my mouth as I sputtered. It had a slightly oily taste, the scent of which was vaguely familiar from my days as a human.

I spat out was in my mouth, trying to rid myself of the bitter taste, and blinked to clear my eyes.

"What the hell?" I asked in mystified shock. "Do you just throw Holy Water on me?"

"Kage?" Angel asked, directly behind me in the short hallway now. The boy's eyes widened in what looked like to be alarmed at seeing the dark-haired girl, then he turned back to me looking like he was panicking.

He suddenly screamed what I guess was suppose to be a battle cry of some kind, but came out sounding more like something on the edge of hysteria. He let the long shaft of the cross drop through his hand until the cross member stopped it at the top of his fist, and then he swung it upward, now holding it almost like a ice pick.

Too late I noticed that the end of the wooden cross was actually a sharpened stake!

His hand plunged downward, and I was too stunned and slow from the bizarre surprise of it all to block or stop it like I should have been able to. Before I could rally myself to react, I felt the point of the cross-turned-weapon rip into the upper muscles of my chest, burying the sharp whittled end in a few inches.

Angel screamed a warning as she saw it coming at me.

"Kage! Watch out!" she cried, too late as well. The best I was able to do was turn slightly with the stab, which softened the blow and probably lessened the damage as well. It surely saved me from being killed first thing by my outlandish assassin.

Other reactions are involuntary, and I came back all teeth and claws. My changed appearance wasn't my most pressing issue right then; my biggest concern at the moment was the ripsaw snarling that was filling the hallway and the tiny vampire that was coming up behind me like a speeding race car.

"Angel! No!" I shouted, moving to the middle of the small hallway to block her path with my body. "Its just some kid!"

I put a hand out and felt Angel's rock hard body slam against it, rocking me on my heels from the impact. I couldn't afford to spare her a glance at the moment. I quickly turned to look at the boy, thinking he might be getting ready to attack me with something else. I was relieved to find him staring at me with wide eyes, petrified with fright and just one step inside my doorway.

"Y-You're suppose to be asleep… in your coffin!" the kid was stuttering inanely.

My features might have presented the most fear-provoking visual exterior at the moment, but he had no idea that the growling Angel was the more dangerous of the two of us.

After several recent attempts on her life, Angel understandably had grown instinctively inclined to kill threats first and ask questions later.

It was obvious by the way he came prepared with such arcane instruments that the human kid had certain knowledge about us, and that wasn't a good thing for either Angel or I.

I couldn't chance him getting away to tell others, or even worse yet, coming back sometime later for another try… seeing that in my carelessness he'd already come much too close to success.

No, we couldn't afford to let him go, at least not before finding out what he was all about, and why he was here.

So I seized the lad by the front of his brand new turtleneck and yanked him all the way inside before he could gather enough wits to try and escape. It was quite a task pulling him in after me, while at the same time pushing Angel before us with my back to keep her separated from the boy, but I did manage to accomplish it.

I slammed the front door shut with my free hand and then jammed the boy up against the hallway wall, still making sure to keep myself between him and Angel, as she was still hissing with fury.

I had no doubt that she would feel guilty later if she harmed a foolish child in a fit of wrath.

I was finally then able to spare a glance her way.

What I found there was not very encouraging in the least. Angel's eyes were pitch black in rage, and her sharp little teeth were still bared in a growl.

"Calm down," I commanded, and then realized that my fangs were still presently on clear display, locked down and long enough to peek out over my lower lip.

If my vampire side was keying off her black mood, it was very possible she might be keying off my feelings of annoyance also. A downside to having more than one vampire living in the same residence I supposed.

So I make a conscious effort to make my oversize canines retract and to cool down, an act easier said than done at the moment.

"Its under control now," I added to her a few seconds later, making sure to keep my tone as calm and level as I could.

The vampire girl growled lowly, and then pointedly glanced at the cross-like stake still protruding from my chest to let me know she didn't currently agree with my assessment.

I reached up without thinking, and pulled the offending stake out.

"Oh crap!" I muttered as I realized what a poorly thought out idea that had been. The tip of the stake came out covered with my blood, and I immediately felt a stream of it start to run freely down my chest.

Dammit! If anyone should know better, it should have been me! I had just screwed up royally.

I spun to look at Angel, and was alarmed to see the black in her eyes ripple like dark water, and then they grew to twice their normal size in surprise.

I immediately braced for a head-on assault from a blood-crazy vampire, but surprisingly, Angel only threw both of her hands up to cover her nose and mouth, and then in a sudden blur of movement she was gone… heading away from the front hall and deeper into the house.

I know for a fact I heaved a heavy sigh of undeserved sweet relief, almost at the same instant I heard a few cupboard doors slam, and then the water start running fast in the kitchen sink.

I then allowed myself to turn my attention back to the boy who had tried to make a pincushion out of me. Pulling the stake out had smarted pretty much almost as bad as it had going in, which didn't improve my mood any. And I was hoping the stake hadn't left any splitters behind, because that would mean digging around with tweezers to remove them, another unpleasant task to possibly look forward to.

I didn't even know at the moment if I could trust myself to explain to the terrified boy just how close he'd just come to having Angel kill us both… without shaking him so hard his damn fool head might actually have snapped and fallen off his scrawny neck!

"What the hell?" I asked instead in something of a controlled manner, while showing him the bloody stake. "Do you mind explaining this?"

The kid was shaking in my hand, but I give him this, he still had some guts.

"Nosferatu!" he said with a nasty glare, making it all the statement and explanation he needed.

I sighed again, no doubt now the undead cat was out of the bag. "Yeah, yeah. I got that much from the friendly hello," I said, holding the stake up again.

"You're not supposed to be up! The sun's still out!"

"Surprise, surprise," I countered. This was just getting better and better!

Just then, Angel appeared in another eye-racking distortion of motion, and this time I caught the strong scent of bleach just as she set a pail of water down on the floor next to me. She still kept one hand clamped tightly over her lower face, and she took the extra precaution of backing several paces away from us in a hurry.

I didn't have to ask what I was supposed to do with the bleach and water; I just dropped the bloody cross turned vampire stake into the bucket.

"Here," Angel said to me next, holding out a small hand towel at arm's length to me as well. I took the towel with my free hand and discovered that was soaking wet as well.

She didn't have to explain what I was expected to do with that either. The smell of bleach was overpowering in the tiny hallway and starting to sting my eyes. On top of that, I was too busy thinking about what I was to do with my would-be assassin to pay much attention to anything else, so I slapped the towel against my wound to stop the bleeding without thinking much more about it.

I almost immediately regretted that action. The large amount of bleach fumes leaking from the bucket did a wonderful job of covering over the scents of everything else to me as well.

Angel must have doused the hand clothe with every bottle of Hydrogen Peroxide and alcohol we had in the house. My t-shirt instantly soaked through and my chest started to burn like the fires of Hades itself.

"AH! Damn it!" I cursed, as it seemed now I was burning from the inside out. "Are you trying to kill me too, girl?" I asked her.

Angel cringed a tiny bit. "Sorry!" she said remorsefully, lowering her hands a tiny bit away from her face and testing the air. It must have been more tolerable for her now because she lowered her hands totally, even though she still looked at me with a deeply apologetic gaze.

I wondered if the day could get any worse at the moment. If someone had bet me a million dollars that a plane would crash into the top of my house in the next two minutes, I don't think I would have taken that bet.

I was really hoping that someday I would be able to look back on this incident and laugh about it, that day just wasn't going to be right now.

I ignored the three-alarmer going on in my left pectoral muscle, because I knew better than to take the clothe off and release any more blood scent into the air, and looked at the kid's face a bit closer. With some dread I abruptly recalled where I remembered seeing that wide-eyed look of terror before now.

"Oh no," I moaned, and then turned to Angel. "This is the kid from the restaurant parking lot last night," I informed her.

She looked blankly at the both of us. Her eyes were still dark, but at least she looked to be under total control for the moment.

"What are you doing here?" I asked, glancing back at the boy.

He slowly pointed a finger at Angel.

"I know what you are!" he exclaimed. "I'm not going to let you turn her into a monster too!"

That took me off guard, as I had thought the kid had meant to try and kill both of us. It never dawned on me that he might not know about Angel… or thought she was human!

I let him go and took a step back, blinking a few times at the absurdity of it all. I didn't know how he could have possibly missed the way Angel moved and acted for the last several minutes. Then again, I'm the guy with the big fangs and the claws, and I'm the guy he'd seen stake another vampire a couple of nights ago. So I was probably the one he paid the most attention to.

If this wasn't such a big problem for us, it might have been funny.

Okay… actually, it was sort of funny… Three Stooges funny, complete with looming colossal disaster in the making.

The alcohol burn in my chest had overwhelmed the unpleasant feeling of being skewered, and even that was starting to fade a bit, thankfully.

Then I attempted to choke back a sudden laugh as the boy's purpose for trying to turn me into a pincushion sank in and all became clear. I myself had studied the countless classic methods that were supposed to kill vampires nearly a century ago. In all this time, the common myths still remained basically unchanged in modern entertainment and literature.

I turned sideways to glance at Angel, to find she was now biting her lower lip and making a point of trying to keep her eyes on the carpet at her feet. Since waking up here, the vampire girl had been a glutton for any movie or TV show about the undead, so she knew the signs and myths just as well as I did. The girl now stood on one leg while she rolled the ball of her other foot back and forth as she tried to contain herself.

Seeing her fight her amusement set me off, and I couldn't help but to roar with laughter. Angel snickered a few times, and then gave up also. Her bright laughter peeled through the hallway a few octaves above mine.

"What's so funny?" the redheaded kid asked nervously after several seconds of the two of us laughing like crazy people. My eyeteeth had withdrawn somewhat, thanks to my conscious effort, but still not all the way. I was sure that the sight of me laughing with a set of sharp teeth in my mouth wasn't a very pleasant one for the boy, in fact it probably looked very sinister… but there wasn't much I could do about it at the moment.

"Kid," I finally said, while wiping a stray tear from the corner of my eye. "She's a vampire too!"

I didn't think it was possible for the boy to look any paler.


	33. Chapter 32

Chapter Thirty-Two:

A few minutes later, when the insane laughter was over, we were still faced with the somber predicament of what we were going to do with a human kid who knew our secret.

We had moved our unwelcome prisoner from the hallway into the relative comfort of the living room to hold our drumhead court, and now we had the boy sitting in one of the recliners facing both Angel and I as judges, while we sat side-by-side on the sofa. His paperboy sack full of anti-vampire weapons sat safely on the floor by Angel's and my feet for the moment.

The boy sat in the leather chair, pressed as far back into it as he was able to get himself, obviously attempting to keep as much distance between us as physically possible. His hands and thin fingers clenched the armrests so tightly that I thought for sure he'd rip the ends off of them at any moment.

The living room stank of his fear, which made Angel uncomfortable with being the cause of it. Me, I liked it just fine, if it helped us reach a solution to the problem faster.

"So… Ronald Jablonski," I drawled, reading from the plastic card in my hand. "The question before us at the moment is… what do we do with you now that you know about us?"

I was doing my best to sound darkly ominous and threatening. This was a grim situation and I want to get that across to the kid. I even made it a point to roughly tear the wallet from the lad's back pocket, and after extracting his driver's license, reading his name and address out loud so he'd have no doubt that we knew exactly who he was and where he lived.

Angel then promptly ruined the effect by asking the boy if he'd like something to drink, and maybe some cookies.

I could plainly see that Angel wasn't getting the gist of what I was trying to do here, and I suspected that she was somewhat taken with the idea that the youngster had meant to heroically charge in and rescue her from the evil monster… namely, me.

I didn't think she could find it in herself to play hardball with that being the case, even if I had a healing hole in my chest from Ronald's misguided mission. I also got the impression that she was a little bit dismayed with her instinctive reaction in the hallway, and was trying to make some small degree of amends.

I guess I should have been lucky that the vampire girl managed to rein herself in long enough to help me dress the wound before we decided to interrogate our visitor. My bloody t-shirt also went into the bucket of bleach, once that was taken care of, Angel's eyes started to settle into their normal honey-gold color again.

"I'll be missed!" Ron replied, trying to put up a brave front.

"No by me," I muttered as the puncture in my chest stung while it continued to heal up. Angel covertly elbowed me in the ribs for my trouble. I was plainly being needlessly mean in her view.

"You can't kill me because other people know where I am. They'll come looking for me within a hour if I don't come home!" Ronald was doing his best to appear confident as he told us that.

I gave him a look that obviously displayed my doubt to that claim. I was about as convinced that he told people he was going vampire hunting as I was sure the Volturi would welcome me into their castle in Italy with opened arms.

"Oh God! You _are_ going to kill me," the boy then moaned when it didn't look like we were buying it.

Angel looked truly mortified by the kid's belief.

"Of course we're not," she told him before I could stop her. "We don't do that sort of thing. We're not that kind of vampires." She reached across the space separating them and placed one of her hands over the boy's, where their white-knuckle tension still threatened the armrest's structural integrity.

As soon as her fingers touched the back of his hand, Ronald yanked it back, clenching the limb to his chest as if it had been burned.

"Holy crap, you're freezing!" he yelled. "You _are_ one of them, aren't you?"

Angel looked a little hurt by his reaction, but I glanced over and caught her eye.

"You're not helping," I said with a slight touch of annoyance. I needed her to stop playing nice with the kid for at least a moment. "We're suppose to be the monsters," I whispered so low that only she could hear.

Her eyebrows met in the middle of her forehead in a stubborn frown.

"I don't _want_ to be the monster," she replied harshly, using the same low whisper human's couldn't detect. "You be the monster if you want to be so mean!"

I grit my teeth, figuring that the pair of us had to look pretty daft to Ronald, as the only thing he would be aware of was the fact we were both making strange annoyed faces at each other.

Yeah, we had to look pretty ridiculous as we bickered below the level of human hearing.

"You're really a vampire!" Ronald said again to Angel, breaking up our private dispute.

She then got a puzzled look on her face, mostly because the boy should not have a reservation about that at this juncture. Then her faced smoothed out and she gave him an affirmative nod that was meant to appear non-threatening.

Jablonski seemed to have all the air taken out of him all of a sudden.

"Its all for nothing then," he moaned, as his body went almost limp in the chair. "I was too late. I couldn't stop him from making you one of the undead."

I'm sure my eyebrows rose just as high as Angel's did as we both figure out at the same instant more about what the kid was thinking.

"No… No!" Angel interrupted. "Kage didn't make me a vampire, Ronald. I've been a vampire for as long as I can remember."

I looked at her appalled. _Stop telling him my name!_ I mouthed silently to her, but it was too late, that damage was already done and beyond repair.

"You have?" the boy asked her, beginning to get a look of wonder on his face.

"Yes," she continued. But not before stealing a glance at me. I did have to admire the way she didn't exactly lie to the boy. For as long as Angel could remember, she always has been a vampire in fact. "I was a vampire before I met Kage, just as he was before he met me."

Okay, there she was stretching the truth just a little bit, but it was better than trying to explain all the fine details to our un-welcomed guest.

"So what? You're like married or something? Like regular people?" Ronald asked with a look of slight disbelief.

A shy look came over Angel for the barest of seconds, but then she reached over and took my hand in hers. I got the impression that we were supposed to be presenting a united front of some sort. At this point I was thinking, what the hell… the image of mean, nasty, creatures of the night I was trying to project had been totally blown out of the water by Angel's amiability. So I let her see what she could do with the kid.

"Well, we're together at this point. Just like any other normal couple would be," she told him. "We're not much different from you and your kind. We're just trying to live and not bother anyone. That's all."

The boy looked to be thinking that over for a moment.

"But… you're vampires!" he insisted a few seconds later.

"So?" Angel answered with a slight shrug. As if being a vampire was no different than being Catholic, or French.

"That's not normal!"

"Who says?"

The kid look befuddled. Angel's casual rebuttal and attitude about the whole affair seemed to give Ronald something to think about. He seemed to be turning the debate around his head, trying to come up with a reasonable explanation why we should be any different than a human couple. I have to admit; sitting in the living room of my middle-class house was probably just too everyday ordinary for him to associate with something as ominous as mythical monsters.

Even I could hear his heartbeat slow, and judging by the light smile that graced Angel's lips she realized he was calming also and that she was on the right track toward reaching him.

I was suddenly glad I had decided to let Angel run with conducting the talk. She seemed to be on to something with attempting to make us appear not too different than any human. I actually could see by his body language that he had visibly relaxed a bit just a moment later, as now he was putting us somewhat in the context of the everyday mundane.

"And… you don't… kill people to feed?" Ron ventured next, looking for confirmation about what we already told him.

"No, neither of us do. We've chosen _not_ to live like that," Angel answered, again sticking as close to the truth as possible.

"Then… what do you eat?" he asked suddenly.

"Animals," Angel replied just as immediately.

The kid's eyes grew a little alarmed, and I abruptly got the idea that he was picturing a puppy mill in our basement.

"Wild animals," I expanded. "We hunt only wild animals. Just like human hunters do." I guess I was going to be stuck claiming I lived the lifestyle of a gold-eye vamp for the duration of the chat, so I might as well get use to playing the part.

That did seem to sit a little better with the kid though. At least he wasn't picturing us stalking around the neighborhood, decimating the neighbors' dogs and cats.

He seemed to need to pause and mull over everything, so Angel and I gave him a minute.

"So what are you going to do with me now?" he asked nervously. I could see he expected some retribution for attacking me.

Angel caught my eye, her hand slightly tightening in mine. I didn't have to ask where her mind was at, and that she wanted me to take it from here. She probably thought getting across something of this dire nature was better talked about man-to-man, so to speak.

I leaned slightly forward in my seat and pursed my lips for a moment, trying to think of the best way to put what I had to say to the kid.

"You are going to kill me for what I know," he said before I could start.

"Ronald…" I began. "No. We're not going to kill you regardless. Like Angel said, we don't do that sort of thing."

He actually looked surprised.

"You're not worried that I'm going to tell anyone about you?"

Angel traded glances with me before I answered. She wanted me to make the kid understand what serious danger he had gotten himself into.

"There's always that danger," I admitted to the boy. "But Angel and I can always leave. Go somewhere else and start over."

The kid frowned.

"You don't have to do that… no one would believe me anyway," he told us.

"That's not exactly true," I responded. He blinked up at me in question. "Humans most likely wouldn't believe you. But there are _others_ who would, and that's where there's a grave danger to you."

He eyes bulged as he put all his recent experiences together.

"You're talking about other vampires, aren't you," he figured out. "Like that one you staked at the Lakeview. That's why you told me to get out of there before he woke up! They'd kill me if they found out I knew about all of you. And I'm also guessing they don't live on animals either."

I nodded; glad the kid was smart enough to connect the dots for himself. It made my current job a bit easier if he reached those conclusions on his own, without us trying to force them upon him.

"They'd kill you… and everyone you know just to be safe that you haven't told them as well about our existence," I confirmed for him.

Jablonski turned pale at that revelation, and swallowed hard. Angel gave me a little bit of a side glare at the mention of the vampire I'd staked at the restaurant. She still was a tiny bit miffed that I kept that a secret from her at the time. I had been forgiven a lot last night, but I still wasn't quite free-and-clear on that account just yet.

"We don't want that to happen to you, Ronald," Angel told him next. "You have no idea how relentless some of them can be once they want to get to you."

I felt the tension in Angel's hand; she knew that actuality all too well.

That truth hit the vampire girl visibly hard, even the boy couldn't help but hear her voice catch as she said the last part.

"Is that… is that why you tried to kill that one last night?" he asked me, "He was after you?"

I was impressed… the kid was quite quick.

"He was after Angel. He and his group want to kill her," I admitted, immediately I was sorry when I saw how afraid she was being reminded of that.

"But why?" Ron asked. He turned look at Angel, obviously aghast with the thought that anyone would want to harm the beautiful vampire girl. Human's instinctively shunned away from vampires mostly, but once they came within the close influence of one just as Ronald had with Angel, they couldn't help but form a sort of fascination with them. Angel hadn't meant to do it, it was just nature.

"It's a complicated matter. And the less you know about it, the safer it will be for you, Ronald," I explained to him. "What you need to know is that they would kill me as well for being with her. So you can see, letting you go is especially dangerous for both of us. But we are going to let you go anyway."

"We just want you to understand the consequences to us, as well as yourself, if you talk about this to anyone. Anyone at all!" Angel added.

"I do," Ronald said firmly. "I'm not going to say a word about this to anyone! You can trust me."

"We have no other choice," I said. "Just so you perfectly understand. You can never speak of this. You can never approach anyone else that you suspect is a vampire, or give them a reason to believe that you might know what they are. Even if they live on animals… they would be required by their laws to kill you to keep the secret safe. Have no doubt, they will wipe you out without a moment's hesitation to protect themselves."

"I-I don't… doubt that," the boy replied. "I believe you. I can't tell you how much I believe you."

"That's good, Ron. We accept your word that our secret will be safe with you," Angel said, projecting total confidence in her tone.

The boy gave her a huge smile for her words of praise. He wanted nothing more at the moment to please Angel.

Yeah, there wasn't a doubt that the human youngster was under Angel's charming spell.

I eventually remembered to inquire about how the boy located us in the first place, and was stunned when he showed me the Motor Vehicle report he picked up that afternoon. I mentally kicked myself for being so careless, and vowed to rectify the weakness in my cover as soon as possible. If anything, at least it wasn't too expensive of a lesson to learn. If Ronald had been a member of the Rogue coven, Angel and I would be dead by now, so I silently thanked my lucky stars the fault had been brought to my attention.

A few moments later, we were seeing Ronald Jablonski to our front door. Angel fawned over him for a few more minutes as he said his good-byes.

As I opened the front door, he turned to me and solemnly offered me his hand to shake, after I'd handed him back his bag of vampire hunting supplies. Angel and I had already explained that the items inside wouldn't work as he thought they would.

"Um… I'm really sorry for trying to stake you through the heart," he said. "I hope we can let bygones-be-bygones?" I could see it meant a lot to him, as he stood on the threshold of manhood, that I accept his apology.

Besides me, Angel glanced up at me through the bangs of her wild hair. She wanted me to bury the hatchet also – so to speak.

I took the kid's hand, finding his grip surprisingly firm for such a skinny lad. I vaguely wondered what he would have thought if he knew that the wound he'd given me was just about nothing more than a pink puckered scar under the bandage at the moment?

"Let's just say you owe me one," I told him instead of enlightening him.

Ronald nodded briskly. "Absolutely. Whenever you need me for anything, I'm your man."

"Just don't do something like that again… to anyone!" I added.

He nodded once more, and then with a shy smile and parting wave to Angel, he turned to walk out the door and down the porch steps without looking back.

Angel and I watched the kid leave with his new knowledge, and I felt as if I'd just sent a child out to play with a loaded gun, but we'd done everything we possibly could have to warn him. The rest was up to Ronald now. We silently gazed after the boy until he reached the end of our long drive and got into a car parked on the side of the road.

We stepped back inside, and she slipped into my arms as I closed the door.

"I think we're okay," she said as she pressed her face against my chest. "I don't think he'll tell anyone."

"We'll have to wait and see," I replied. I didn't have the faith in humanity that Angel seem to have, and in this instance I was hoping she was a better judge of character than I was.

She hugged me tighter.

"It'll be fine," she repeated. Her eyes were closed and she appeared to be enjoying the moment as much as I was… if that were possible.

It was hard to brood over slight misfortunes with Angel in my arms. I began to rock her gently back and forth as we stood there. She smiled a tiny bit as she let me move her in my arms. Angel felt as wonderful as she smelled, and I was growingly reluctant to move from where we were.

"Well, there's one good thing that happened tonight," I muttered.

"What's that?"

"At least he didn't pee himself this time," I added, trying to be flippant.

I thought Angel might have gotten a chuckle out of that observation, however she only cracked her eyes open and then her brow furrowed in thought, as her pretty lips drew themselves into a tiny rosebud.

Her features just as abruptly smoothed out and relaxed a few seconds later, and then she nodded her head against my chest a few times in agreement.


	34. Chapter 33

Chapter Thirty-Three:

Even with my narrow escape from the would-be young assassination, my new feelings of relief and freedom with having finally unburied all my skeletons with Angel didn't last very long.

The first day or so after my last brush with death was a touch stressful, and neither Angel nor I wanted to admit we were secretly waiting for a group of furious Rogue vampires to bust down our door. We smiled at each other a lot, and pretended everything was normal.

It was about two days after having our parking-attendant-turned-ninja houseguest drop by, that I gave into the need for everything to return to relative normal, and made a trip to my favorite Seattle music store when it all started unraveling once again.

The store _"High Notes"_ was located just a few blocks south from the nightclub I had first met Angel in. It was an unusually sunny day, so Angel had wisely decided to remain at home and out of human sight, while I ran in to buy a few sets of new bass strings. The task was far from being vital, but as I said, we were both trying our best to structure our lives with some sort of normalcy, and Angel was hinting that perhaps I should focus on returning to my regular gig with the band. The girl very philosophically looked at it as if we let fear rule us, then our enemies had already won.

I vaguely wondered from which TV show she had gotten that idea? But I suspected also that she was growing bored with hiding out and might have been thinking it might be safe enough to sneak out to a show or two.

Neither of us spoke out loud about it that particular morning, but the Rogue ambush at the restaurant still couldn't help but to still deeply concerned us both. However, the more we hashed it over between ourselves the night before, the only reasonable conclusion we could come up with for the attack was that it had been only pure coincidence that the coven had run across us Friday night, and had recognized Angel's scent.

Still, I thought it would probably be best to play it safe and have Angel lay low for a while longer, and she only reluctantly agreed with me at best, and just for the moment.

It wasn't hard to guess that soon she'd be chafing to get out of the house again and return to trying to get her life back once more… and that wasn't something she could readily do hiding out here.

I made the run to the music store partly to humor her, and partly using the trip to test the waters of Seattle, attempting to judge how safe it might actually be for us.

I was going to make the effort to see things return to normal as much as possible, though I privately doubted I was going to be returning to the band anytime soon, even I thought that might be pressing our luck. I wisely didn't voice that opinion to Angel just yet however.

"What are the odds of one small coven stumbling across us again in a city the size of Seattle?" I had finally said to reassure her a little bit, silently hoping I was right, but still only saying it more because it was something she needed to hear.

Angel wasn't foolish in the least, and was still worried about the freak assault as much as I was, but she was obviously suppressing the apprehension she felt. She wasn't the type to let fear win without a fight.

She had nodded her head in agreement with me; repeating that the attack had most likely been just a fluke meeting after all in her estimation also.

It was either we kept telling ourselves that, or we would both go crazy jumping at every shadow or creak in the house… especially after two long days of waiting to see if Ron Jablonski had screwed up somehow to seal our fates.

Despite the dark figurative cloud hanging over our lives, I found I felt somewhat cheerful on the sunny drive into Seattle at least. The rare sunlight has a way of lifting your spirits even during harsh times… especially when you live under almost constant cloud cover. Part of me wished Angel could have been with me enjoying the sun, instead of home worrying that it might expose what she was.

My mood was so light that passing near the closed nightclub only reminded me of how that strange night changed my life, for the better I would now say if anyone were to ask… about how Angel came into my existence. Funny, at one time in my past the building would only have reminded me of an attack and a vampire I killed.

I didn't once for a change spare a thought to having killed the Rogue who had been stalking her, or about how that lone act had probably spelled doom for my long span of remaining undercover, and lost to the world of vampires.

Life was too good at the moment with the new direction Angel and I had taken, to spend time dwelling on such things.

Damn, how I wished my problems could have just ended there.

These last few days at home even hiding under a shadow of doom still had periods of adventure us, now that I could let Angel see the real me. Every touch, every glance, every smile we shared was a thrill.

I even enjoyed the way she critically picked apart certain portions of my music collection, and then she would force a debate over some new song or group she'd seen or heard on the music channels.

I felt monetarily bad for a moment that the only gateway to world opened to her for the time being was the television, but Angel didn't seem to mind all that much for the most part.

For now.

Late in the evening, she'd be leaning against me, as she explained her take on the plot of some story or program we were watching. I could have seen the movie a hundred times before, and she would have me seeing it in an entirely new light.

I easily became enchanted with the way her mind worked and how she saw things that most people, including myself, might have taken for granted.

I even liked the bittersweet way my arms would ache when she was not in them.

It was like we were meant to be together, that we were two halves of a whole.

That feeling should have made me uncomfortable after the life I've had, but it didn't.

At around 11am in the morning, there was plenty of room on the street in front of the music store to park. In another hour the lunch crowd would be stopping by for quick purchases. Then after 5pm, after the workday was done, the store would fill with the local music heroes, the garage bands, and the cellar-dwellers, all looking to rub elbows and discuss their life's passion with like souls.

I had timed my visit perfectly.

Fans of the band sometimes recognized me on the street, but not too often, probably from my penchant for not mingling with the crowd on breaks. Recognition was the last thing I wanted today… and probably ever again as long as I was with Angel.

Not a hard thing to give up considering the joy with her that I had found.

I chose the closest parking space to the store available and pulled the Explorer in. I wasn't going to be long with having to pick up only a few things, so I didn't bother locking the vehicle's doors. There wasn't much of anything of value inside the Ford to steal except for maybe the Ford itself… if somebody was that desperate.

I crossed the sidewalk and had just put my hand on the door handle when the light breeze suddenly shifted. I might have missed it, if I hadn't been in such a good mood and she hadn't been so much on my mind.

The cool breeze and sun reminded me to stop and smell the flowers once in awhile, so to speak. I seemed to be finding myself comparing anything pleasant to Angel, and it wasn't surprising that nothing even came close to her.

I inhaled deeply before entering the store, and I was surprise to find a very familiar scent on the wind.

It was faint, but it was there. Not something a human would ever notice, but a vampire – or half-vampire – would… especially if that scent was the gage to which you currently measured all else.

I could scent Angel in the air.

I knew that wasn't possible. I'd left the vampire girl safely at home not more than an hour ago, I was sure of it.

But there was no denying; it was her drifting on the breeze to me!

I let the door's handle go, my make-busy visit momentarily forgotten, and turned to face into the gentle wind, expanding my lungs to take more of the scent in. My nose told me to follow the trail… and I did, northward for several city blocks.

I felt a spot of cold grow in my stomach as I realized, the scent was leading me in the direction of the club where I first saw Angel.

I was wondering at first, and it was a crazy thought, if I would actually find the vampire girl somewhere in that direction. But the scent never became heavier as it would if I was getting closer to her person.

Instead, the trail led me to a streetlamp post, just a block from the nightclub itself.

That stumped me at first, because the scent began there. Walking around the post to the up-wind side and the scent was gone, after completing the circle it was back again.

But there was no Angel in sight, and the scent was still way too light.

I let my nose lead me further, as my eyes were failing me. The scent finally directed me to a square scrap of red paper that was jumbled in with about a dozen old show flyers and notices posted on the pole. It was about three-inches wide, tacked to the post at about eye level.

I saw there was something crudely drawn upon the scrap piece as I took it down from the pole. I brought it closer to my nose and inhaled once more.

Angel's scent came from the paper!

I was more than perplexed, and then I turned my attention to the markings I'd noticed on one side of the square. It took me a moment, but I finally realized what they in fact were.

Vampire script!

I was a bit rusty, but I recalled what I knew of the obscure language after I studied the writing for a few moments. My blood froze in my veins as I deciphered the first two larger characters.

The first one was the common symbol for, 'wanted'.

The second one I was sure meant a more formal form of the vampire word meaning, 'final death'.

The rest of the markings were smaller and for now unfamiliar. Vampire script was a complicated language. It was part archaic text, part code, and on occasion contained a great deal of local and regional idioms. Because of coven feuds, the language was wont to change rapidly as alliances shifted and reformed. Blocks of characters and phrases could have duel meanings, and hidden denotations as well.

To be able to read script reliably you had to keep up with the current changes… and I was fifty years out of date and practice with the skill.

Judging by the loose format, I could only recognized that some of the icons in certain places were possibly meant to be the names of whatever coven or vampires made the note. Though at the moment, I knew what none of them were for sure. The rest of the scribble I assumed might have listed a number of grievances or reasons why she was wanted dead by these particular individuals.

Nowhere on the paper would be the condemned's name, it wasn't needed. Angel's blood scent on the scrap piece told me, and anyone else who could scent it, whom the post was about.

I'd in fact found the equivalent of a Vampire Wanted Poster! Life for the vampire girl and I was looking like it would never return to a semblance of normal.

Somebody wanted Angel dead, and this was their way of telling other vampires and covens in the area.

I was willing to bet the house that it was the Rogue clan placing the price on her head.

This was bad in way too many ways! Not to mention unprecedented to the best of my knowledge. I've never before heard of a Rogue group placing such death notes around and advertising their presences in any location. By rights and law, the other covens would be banding together and hunting them down with extreme prejudice.

Unless…? And this thought made me shiver despite the warm sun and good weather.

Unless that damn coven of Rogues was so large that they had nothing to fear from the others… even if the other covens did band together to combat the Hunters!

If that were the case, it could explain how they found us at the LakeView a few nights ago. With enough coven members they could easily cover much of the city.

I could also easily see the normal local covens turning Angel over to the Rogues if they found her, if for anything, to buy themselves some respite from the Rogues preying on their own members.

It wasn't hard to figure out how the Hunters obtained Angel's scent for their posters. They probably returned to the scene of the first ambush after finding the Rogue I had killed, and collected some of her blood that was left behind. With the seriousness of the wounds I discovered on her that night, I was pretty certain she'd left enough of her blood behind somewhere for them to figuratively paint the town red with.

All they had to do was rub a little bit of the stuff on the paper slips, and it was better than a photograph as a means for vampires to positively identify her. Changing her name or even her looks would not be enough to hide her from enemies in this instance!

This wasn't the first time I've sent these vampire death warrants. I'd left enough blood behind me during nearly half a century of killing them to have run across dozens with my scent on them. It was only just blind luck that no vamp ever stumbled upon me when I wasn't ready for them because of the posters.

However, that certainly explains why vampires ambushed us twice in less than an hour several nights ago. If these notices were all over – and I had no reason to doubt that they weren't – they'd practically have a never sleeping army out looking for Angel!

I crushed the paper in my hand on pure instinct, and looked around quickly to see if I could spot anymore.

There were none as far as I could see, but one would cover quite a large area depending on the wind.

I almost tossed the paper, but thought better of it a few seconds later. It might be useful and there was no point in leaving it around to continue spreading its airborne message, so I smoothed it back out before neatly folding it and placing it in the front pocket of my jeans.

I immediately forgot all about the visit to the music store and returned directly to the Ford.

I had to get home as quickly as possible to fill Angel in on my discovery and the bad news.

And to make sure she was still all right, as I suddenly felt that not even my home would be safe for her much longer.

Depending on how far and wide they posted these death warrants.


	35. Chapter 34

Chapter Thirty-Four:

An hour later Angel sat across from me in our living room, almost shaking in her seat.

I grinded my teeth absently as I gazed at her, I'd just told her what I'd discovered in Seattle near the club and what it all meant.

I hated the look of fear growing in her gold eyes, and I wanted to kill the rest of the Rogues for causing it.

"What are we gonna do?" she wanted to know; there was the beginnings of wild desperation in her eyes. "We could leave! Just get out of here, today!"

I shook my head, and reined in my own feelings. They would do neither of us any good. I had thought long and hard about the new situation on the ride home, and I wasn't pleased with many of the conclusions I had come to after logically assessing the matter as my Japanese instructors had taught me long ago.  
"I don't think that would do any good in the long run," I told her honestly. "If a coven of Rogues is operating in plain view in Seattle without fear of reprisals from the other covens, they must be big and powerful. If they are looking for you openly here, I would think they'd probably be looking for you all over the country by now as well. Most vampires naturally move around a lot to keep from being noticed by humans. I think they would have taken that into consideration, and provided options to cover you running. If its gone this far, I don't think they're ever going to let it go. I'm sorry."

And I was. I was remorseful that they were turning the girl's life upside-down. I was sorry she had been so injured that she couldn't remember herself. And I was mostly sorry because I felt it was all my fault. Perhaps if I had somehow left that Rogue alive that night, they would have gone on with their business and eventually forgotten all about Angel. I couldn't help but feel killing him in the heat of the moment had all but sealed her fate. Maybe that's what really made me angry the most?

"So what now?" she asked again, unaware of the regret going through my mind. I could tell she was about ready to jump out of her skin… and that made it all the worse.

"Maybe… we use that to our benefit," I ventured a few seconds later, in the past I had always had a knack for turning a disadvantage into an advantage. I hoped that capability wouldn't desert or disappoint me now. "Let's walk through this slowly. You've escaped them twice now, that's a fact that even they have to be thinking about. And they have to realize that it's only a matter of time before you found one of these." I held up the red scrap of paper for her to see again. "They know without a doubt that you are aware that you're outnumbered by them. I think any reasoning vampire is going to expect someone in your position to run now, or very soon at least. They're essentially hunters, and bolting is what they'd want you to do… that's their game. So we don't play their game and do the unexpected. Instead, you stay put here and lay very low. After a short time of not finding a sign of you again, they might think you slipped by them and focus looking for you elsewhere."

Angel nodded her head that she was following my logic.

"Do you think that will work?" She looked hopeful. I hated to take that away from her.

"I don't know," I said honestly again. "It all depends on how inexperienced and impatient they are as a group. I wouldn't count on it working for long though, I'd make that a last ditch option."

The pretty vampire shrank in her seat.

"So there's nothing we can do," Angel said miserably.

I had been racking my brain for more possible, hands on, means of getting us out of this. The ideas I was coming up with weren't much good at all. To put the better ideas in play, I was going to have to risk breaking some major promises I'd made long ago. I wasn't sure what repercussions I would be facing if those three certain vampires learned I had broken the truce I'd made with them.

If that happened, Angel and I would probably find we had them on our necks as well as the Rogues, and those three for all I knew could be dead, or might now be in positions of real power in the vampire world.

In that extreme case that their stars had risen in the vamp hierarchy, they wouldn't want to risk the rest of their kind finding out I wasn't really as dead as they claimed I was. I could foresee the manhunt for me that followed in that situation would far out-shadow anything the Volturi had previously tried with me, and Angel would be right there in the sights with me.

And even if I could avoid breaking the pact, I thought there was little chance most my ideas would accomplish much expect for getting us both spectacularly killed somewhere alone the line.

I looked at sweet, wonderful, Angel… so tiny and innocent in all that's befallen her. Angel who had forgiven me who I once was and who told me she loved me regardless. And I decided I didn't really care if it came down to it. Not trying was going to get her killed eventually for sure, so what was there to really lose?

It was better to die with her or for her, than to live the shell of a life I had been living.

I had told that trio of vamps long ago that I would keep my word on condition that an innocent, or myself, wasn't threatened. At the time I had been speaking about humans, and I'm not sure how I could justify acting on behalf of another vampire? In truth, I never foresaw or considered that I would ever lift a finger to protect a vampire!

Well… Angel was an innocent. She was being threatened, and I loved her… so promises be damned if that fell outside of the scope of our bargain!

"No, there is something worse than waiting and hiding that I've been kicking around… that I think we can do," I said into the silence that had fallen between us. "They started this game and so far we've been stuck playing by their rules. So I say we shake things up and change the rules. We take this, and we go a bit more on the offensive."

Angel's thin brows met in the middle as she gazed at me in new puzzlement.

"What do you mean by that?"

"I mean we don't think about running, and we do a little less hiding. We find out whom the major players against us are, and we go after them," I said as I stood up from my chair. I was more thinking out loud than anything else at the moment. "We target them… specifically."

Without a further word, I headed for the basement door. Angel rose gracefully from the sofa and followed behind me in opened curiosity.

We made it all the way down into the semi-finished basement, and were at the locked storage room door picking out the key for the padlock before Angel's inquisitiveness got the better of her, and she asked me anything more.

The shackle to the lock popped opened, and I swung the door inward.

"What are we doing down… Oh, my lord!" she gasped as I flicked on the light.

The single light bulb in the small room revealed to her the racks of weapons and storage trunks that lined all four walls of the space.

"What is all this?" she wanted to know, as she stepped further into the room and slowly turned in place to take everything in.

"My past," I simply replied. I began picking items off racks to check them. Some of them I placed aside, others I returned to their brackets because they didn't fit my current need. A few of the trunks were labeled with their contents; I took items from several of them as well. On a shelf was a surplus duffle bag containing my new experimental body armor. I pulled that down as well and tossed that out onto the basement floor outside the door.

"You kept all this?" Angel asked a moment later. Her tone was a little wondrous.

I heave a small reluctant sigh.

"Its not the sort of stuff you just get rid of when you had the life I did."

I vaguely wondered if seeing all the evidence of my passed atrocities was going to change Angel's mind about how okay she was with who I had been. Telling her about it was one thing; I had to think coming face-to-face with the evidence of it was going to be another. The tools of my prior trade were not pleasant to consider, much less look upon.

I pulled down one of several bow cases, and then a case of ready-made arrows from their shelves.

Angel astonished me once more by turning to me with a small but real optimistic smile on her previously glum face.

"I'm glad you didn't!" she suddenly spouted.

I had been checking the fit of the composite limbs into the raiser, as I assembled and inspected my take-down bow, and not paying much attention to Angel while she sat cross-legged on the living room floor, examining with open curiosity some of the things I had brought up from downstairs.

"Hey!" she suddenly exclaimed in minor shock.

Suddenly her scent became heavier in the room, making my teeth ache.

I glanced up from what I was doing and darted a look over to her, to discover her holding one of my arrows in one hand, while she curiously inspected a trickle of blood that leaked from the webbing between her thumb and pointer finger of her other hand.

"What the hell is this thing?" she asked somewhat crossly, while brandishing the broadhead at the end of the shaft at me like it was a pointer.

"Put that down… and be more careful," I admonished.

She dropped the offending arrow back into the case, and then held up her now healing hand.

"How can that have cut me?" she wondered. "Not even the steak knives in the kitchen can so much as tickle me."

"It's a rare forged steel," I explained as I returned to checking my bow for any sign of defect that may have occurred during its long time in storage. "Made especially for only one thing." I really didn't want to go into details about how I perfected the technique of making that particular folded steel, from the skills that had been passed down to me from several Japanese sword-smiths, whose own predecessors had started the quest long before I was even born and lived as a human.

Angel read between the lines of my vague reply anyway, and had no problem expanding on what I'd given her.

"Meant specifically to perforate vampires," she finished casually.

"Yeah."

"Oh," she simply said, as if I'd only just confirmed the weather conditions for her. She gazed at her palm again, and then held it back out to me.

"Want a taste?" she teased when she caught my attention again. She must have been in a better mood if she could torment me I considered.

"Yeah… bright idea," I retorted. "You promised me you weren't going to do that anymore."

Angel grinned mischievously, and then pressed her hand to her mouth to get rid of the temptation.

"Sorry! But it's your loss," she taunted a moment later. She wasn't at all sorry, and was hoping I'd give in. Vampire foreplay was full of pitfalls.

"To the moon, Angel. To the moon," I muttered back at her instead of taking the bait, which only made her laugh harder as she recognized one of the catch phrases from a classic TV show, altered to fit her in place of the wife.


	36. Chapter 35

Chapter Thirty-Five:

The following night Angel wasn't in such a good or teasing mood… in short, we were arguing. It was mostly my fault really, as I should have been a little clearer about how my plans were actually going to be played out. In my own defense, I'd never before had to work as a team with anyone, and especially never with a vampire when my whole purpose was going to screw with other vampires.

On top of this and too my surprise, Angel insisted that I do everything I possibly could to keep the promise I made to those strange vampires fifty-some years ago. I was ready to throw it all away, but Angel refused to budge on that condition, for some vague reason she really couldn't explain other than that promise had made me who I was today and it was important to her that I not lose that.

In the end I reluctantly agreed to her terms, and later saw that perhaps she'd been right. Keeping a low profile if possible would be better for us in the long run. However, it raised an entirely new set of complications on how to go about putting my plans into action, which in turn, led to our current disagreement.

"You are _not_ going alone!" Angel was demanding, in a voice that threatened to shatter glass.

"I am," I countered, keeping my tone level and calm, the voice of logic and reason. I couldn't have matched her volume or decibel range anyway, even if I tried yelling.

I had pulled the old Explorer into the garage to keep my preparations for tonight activities from the eyes of any prying neighbors. I placed the cased bow into the back seat of the SUV, along side the quiver of arrows, and did a visual check to be sure I had everything I thought I would need for the run.

I was almost surprised how easily I fell into the old habit of triple-checking everything.

I seemed to have all my gear present and accounted for, so I closed the door and turned only to find my way blocked by a very tiny but angry vampire.

A storm brewed behind her eyes, making the gold roll in her irises. The black edge of anger only accented the effect. Even pissed off, Angel was still beautiful to behold.

She stood before me with her thin arms obstinately crossed over her chest, one of her small feet actually tapped out a steady tempo in agitation on the cement floor of the garage. I knew better than to grin at the cute sight she presented to me.

Not if I didn't want her to forget herself and break me in half that is.

"I thought we were in this together?" she sneered.

"We are."

"Then you're not being reasonable," she told me. She now waggled a finger at me for emphasis. I was wearing new experimental body armor under a large leather Australian Outback coat, which nearly doubled my size. We must have looked comical with the petite vampire girl scolding me like a schoolteacher.

"_Don't smile…don't smile,"_ I kept silently telling myself. I would have hated to end up with a broken arm even before I left my garage.

"I'm the only one being reasonable at the moment," I countered instead. "You need to have some trust in me on this. I did this sort of thing for a long time and I always worked alone. I'll be fine."

That only made her scowl more deeply at me.

"That's not fair! You know I still trust you… even though you lied to me about who you are."

I blinked. That was a low shot… good, but low. I was very impressed with her deviousness regardless.

"Now who's not being fair?" I countered, looking a little wounded for effect. Okay, I really was smarting a little bit; she had scored well on me. "Still, this will go smoother if I do it alone."

"You haven't done this sort of thing in a long time!" she argued.

"Like falling off a bike," I replied confidently.

"You just don't think I can handle this," she snarled, changing tactics.

"That's not it…" I started to say.

"I'm not afraid of anything!"

"I know." I knew that she was in fact afraid. What she really meant was that she wasn't going to let that fear stop her from helping and risking herself along side me. I knew better than anyone you could be scared spit-less and still be brave. Or in my case, still be dumber than a doornail and do stupid thing… like repeatedly chase after vampires.

No doubt, Angel had the heart of a lion despite all that's happened to her, and the odds against us.

"Then I'm going."

She said that like it was the end of the discussion. I braced myself to disappoint her, and for a slightly longer battle of wills.

"No," I said firmly, and held up a finger to stall her when she started to gear up for another verbal assault that I was positive would leave me figuratively bruised, battered, and burned up one side and down the other. "This is better as a one… er, _person_, operation." I caught myself before I said _'one man'_ because I could very well picture Angel smiling in victory, and pointing out that there would still only be one man along even if she went. "It's a quick in, get what we need, and a quick out. That's much easier to accomplish if there's only one involved. Besides… I don't have anymore armor that would fit you."

"I don't need armor," she pointed out testily.

"I'd feel better if you had some if you were there." I knew better than to come out and admit that I'd be worried about her getting hurt or killed, because I was sure that would only make her more stubborn about the issue.

Angel twisted her pretty lips at me in doubt.

"You don't even know if that stuff is going to work or not!"

"I tested it carefully. It'll work," I said with as much confidence as I could muster. In truth, I only hoped the armor would work against vampires as I thought it would. All I really had to go on were some contrived home testing I did after I had constructed the set I was wearing.

"Please," I said, "You need to have a little faith that I know what I'm doing. I'm just going in to snag a straggler from the herd. Get the Rogue somewhere I can make them talk and then get out. The rest of them will never even know I'm there. I'll be a piece of cake compared to other things I've done." I smiled, even though I figured that scenario was probably as far from the truth as I could get without outright lying. Experience had taught me that almost nothing goes that easy as far as vampires were involved. But it was the basic plan, and my plans had always had to be changed and adapted as I went along. So actually… everything was perfectly normal come to think on it.

"Just trust me to do this for you… for us. I'll be alright."

Angel growled lightly at me.

"You're not going to admit I'm right?"

"Nope."

"You're not gonna change your mind about this?"

"Nope."

She glared daggers at me for a few long seconds.

"I hate you."

"I'm sure you do," I responded levelly. She stamped her foot again when she didn't get the reaction she wanted out of me.

"If you're not back by daybreak… I'm coming to look for you," she told me, poking me in the chest with a stiff forefinger. "I don't care what you say."

I flinched involuntarily, because I could picture that small digit poking holes in my new breastplate. I was afraid to look down and draw her attention to the armor. If her fingertip had in fact left divots in the tough plastic and titanium, it would start another round of heated debate about the effectiveness of my untried protective gear. One I was going to lose.

"Okay, fine. I'll be back way before dawn regardless," I promised, suddenly regretting that I'd told her about my plans to lurk around a Seattle park that had reported missing humans, and humans killed in mysterious attacks late at night. I'd been keeping up on strange events in the news even before Angel had shown up.

One of the stories I'd been tracking was a rash of attacks over the last several months in a series of parks on Seattle's Westside. Parks that until recently had remained abnormally crime-free for years.

The papers had described them as some type of unusual animal attacks, but I had known better.

I paused at the workbench and picked up a second Banshee Bush Knife and handed the short sword-like blade and its sheath to her.

"I don't think you need it, but keep this with you," I said. "Kill anything without a heartbeat that happens to break in."

"Gee, thanks," Angel replied drolly.

I chuckled at her grimace, despite the seriousness of the situation. I walked around Ford to the opened driver's door with Angel following gloomily along behind me, kicking moodily at the floor with the balls of her feet.

"Catch the garage door?" I asked of her.

"Sure… why not," she answered with a frown.

I paused a moment, and threw an arm around her waist to draw her to me as she made a move to pass by me.

"I love you," I told her, and then kissed her deeply.

She played limp for a few seconds to let me know she was still aggravated with me, but then threw herself into the embrace for a moment. When she finally pulled away she said, "I love you too… dumb-ass!"

She somehow danced away out of my reach, but not before placing one of her tiny palms against my armored chest and shoving me into the driver's seat. The push had a slight bit more force than would have been considered friendly or playful behind it. I was sure it was intended to show me the extent of her displeasure with my decision. If not for the sturdy armor plate, she probably would have knocked the wind out of me.

"Get out of here before I smarten up and change my mind," she warned me, as she walked over and hit the garage door switch on the wall. "Remember! Daybreak… and no later, or I'm coming to look for you. And I'll be taking the _Vette_!"

That tacked on threat gave me a second's pause, and I almost got back out of the Ford to argue with her further on that matter. I saw the slight smirk of victory on Angel's pretty face, and decided that wouldn't be a wise idea… and that I wouldn't win that particular argument anyway. Better I take what she had graciously allowed me thus far and scram while the scramming was good.

The garage door rumbled opened on its tracks, as I did the smart thing for a change and closed the SUV's door and then started the engine.

Angel's features however turned a bit sad with worry as I pulled out. I watched her in the rear view mirror until I lost her with the garage door closing again.

I forced my mind onto the task at hand. It had been decades since I had done what I was going to attempt tonight, and despite my confident comments to the contrary, I was a little nervous about how it was going to work out.

I consoled myself with that being a good sign. I had always in the old days considered that the day I wasn't worried about going up against vampires was the day I'd become too overconfident for my own good… and that would probably be the day I died… and died in a very stupid manner!

I reached the end of my driveway, and turned the Explorer north bound toward Seattle.

It was just after 9pm, and I was hoping to be back to Angel with the answers we needed in just a few hours at the most.

And most definitely by daybreak if I wanted my classic Corvette to remain safe and sound in one piece.


	37. Chapter 36

Chapter Thirty-Six:

Leschi Park was located just slightly south and to the east of East Yesler Way, and again several blocks away from where the nightclub I originally met Angel in was located, and where I had discovered the blood poster. The park shared a boarder with Frink Park and actually ran almost all the way east to Lake Washington.

The local news carried several unusual reports of people being attacked and a few gone missing in the park area, and I figured with all the combined strange occurrences, that would be the best place to start searching for the Rogue pack. Where the regular red-eyed vamps were hunting humans, that would be the Rogues' hunting grounds as well.

The police had issued a warning to avoid the parks after dusk, and they even announced a step up in patrols. Half an hour of surveillance confirmed for me that the prowl cars only toured around the outer perimeter of the park and didn't enter them. The media had classified the few fatalities that were discovered as attacks from an unknown animal. Law Enforcement speculated a pack of wild dogs.

I knew better.

I couldn't fault the cops for not going into the park after dark. Especially after having to clean up the remains of victims. Vampire hunting grounds gave off an uncomfortable vibe once you've seen their handwork. Over the years, I've come to think of it as nature's way of warning humans away from potential danger; otherwise the entire race would be easy pickings for vamps. It was the unlucky ones that never get the chance to feel the creepy sensation whose first encounter with anything vampire is their last.

No, I couldn't much blame the cops for listening to that inner voice and steering clear of the parks at night.

It did however… make tonight's task much easier.

What Angel and I sorely needed at the moment to overcome our predicament was intelligence about our enemies, and I figured the most expedient way to get it was to find one of our new playmates and see if I could persuade them to enlighten me as to whom the other players were.

After parking the Ford close by to the park, it was easy to time my movements with the gaps in police coverage.

I ditched the heavy leather coat inside the SUV. I'd only needed it to cover my garb while there was a risk of humans seeing me. Armor in this day and age would stand out like a sore thumb, and I didn't want to have to explain myself to anyone obviously.

Now the coat would have been in the way, as I had to strap on more weapons and a quiver of arrows over my protective covering.

The wall surrounding Frink Park was only about twelve-foot high. I leaped easily to the top, pulling myself up with one hand to crouch on the wall's cap as I silently surveyed the area beyond.

My head and face was covered with a dark-gray veil-like scarf, the only part of the traditional Shinobi Shozoko I really ever used. Wrapped around into a mask, it left a slit for my eyes to peer through. The mask also broke up my outline, helped me blend into dark places. It could also be removed and hidden at a moment's notice; something black military face paint would not allow you to do.

I remained motionless on my perch for several minutes, scanning the area below me for signs of my quarry. When nothing was evident, I dropped quietly to the ground. I began a systematic search of the grounds, moving as quickly as was reasonable, but still remaining silent.

I had a lot of territory to cover. I was going in relatively cold as far as reliable information, and probably had several hours of searching ahead of me yet.

It was just after midnight when I finally crossed from Frink Park into the boundaries of Leschi Park. Leschi seemed to hold the majority of the attack incidents, and I considered this would be my best hunting ground. However, I had wanted to be thorough in my mission, so I had swept through Frink Park first on the off chance that vampires were stalking there tonight as well.

I hugged the shadows, naturally seeking them as I moved, shifting from one to the other as I silently traveled deeper into the park.

I was actually armed lightly considering my past practices, with my custom-built takedown bow and a quiver full of titanium shaft arrows as my main weapon. The back quiver was specially padded to keep the arrows inside it from rattling against each other. In fact, everything I carried or that was attached to me was designed with absolute silence in mind.

When you hunted vampires with superhuman senses, running silent was the rule that kept you alive longer.

A Banshee bush knife was slung over my right shoulder as well, taking the normal place of a ninjato sword I no longer had.

My new polycarbonate/Spectra mixed body armor was light and fit my body and limbs closely, almost like a second skin. It was also surprisingly soundless compared to the hardened leather and steel armor plate backed by old-fashioned chain mail I was restricted to using in my old vampire hunting days of fifty years past.

While I had been out of the extermination game, I had kept up with modern times and progress, always interested in new metals and materials that were being developed by human ingenuity.

The riot armor had been a curiosity buy at first, and a keep busy project more than anything. I have never intended to start hunting vampires again, but I tweaked the armor using some other newer materials with the eye of improving it for just such a use… just as a venture to kill time. After all, when you only sleep about three hours a day, you have more extra time to kill than the normal person.

I guess still in the back of my mind somewhere, I had always been hedging my bets and preparing for a worst-case scenario. I couldn't help it actually; training and experience have pounded the necessity into my makeup until it became no different than breathing to me.

And given the fact that my life had been turned upside down in only a single night, since the moment Angel literally fell into my arms, I was lucky that I indulged myself in such 'keep busy' hobbies.

The new armor had never been tested in battle before of course, so tonight just might be its baptism through fire if things went a bit sour.

I had several other little nasty toys concealed about me, but the bow and Banshee were going to be my main lines of attack and defense… and not very much use against the one lucky Rogue I needed to capture alive for my chat.

But those are the breaks in vampire warfare. You work and make due with the cards you were dealt… or you didn't play.

For the next hour of my hunt, I found nothing out of the ordinary in the second park either, except for a few lovers looking for a private place to be alone, mostly young humans foolishly braving the park despite the recent rash of attacks. Some mortals were thickheaded enough to believe they were invincible, and would hazard anything… especially the young.

It made me shake my head in wonder, they didn't realize just how short and fragile their lives really were. Oddly, I was a little envious of that sort of innocence.

I slipped by the various couples unseen, and never heard. Occasionally I'd make a complete slow circle of one or another pair looking for signs of a pending vampire attacks, and trying to ignore the knowledge that I was using them as sacrificial lambs. I kept reminding myself that I had not placed them there in the park, but it didn't make the task any easier to stomach.

After all these years, I still remembered feeling the same way as a human, tempted to throw caution to the wind for the sake of your heart's desire… before my illness that is.

Life had a way of stealing that illusion of invincibility from you, and dulling those wild cares of youth over time… one way or another. Some of us just learned that lesson early… and some of us learned it in the cruelest of ways.

Human nature, which as bluntly cold-blooded as it sounds, was what I had been counting on tonight.

The sad truth of the stalk is you have to have some kind of bait when you pursue dangerous game, and the humans would have been out here tonight risking themselves anyway, regardless of my own plans for the evening.

The news that a few people had died or gone missing in the area was common knowledge, if they were rash enough to tempt fate and to be here after dark, then so be it.

Or at least… that's what I kept telling myself.

The recent attacks in this particular park also puzzled me on another matter, as I previously noted.

While Seattle's other parks had their normal share of muggers and strong-arm robbers at night, Leschi had always seemed to have less of them than any other. In fact, in most cases, crime seemed to be almost nonexistent in this particular park for some strange reason… until recently.

Rumor had it that a few of the older locals insist the park was haunted, but to the best of my knowledge no one has ever reported seeing an apparition of any sort here.

The lack of crime, and the oblivious state of the humans utilizing the area as a result of such an absence, is what I figured recently drew the vamps, and then the Rogues to hunt here.

They both in turn, brought me here tonight.

Sort of a sick and twisted circle of life, don't you think?

I was actually otherwise feeling pretty elated about being out tonight, it had been a long time since I've stretched my senses and instincts out on a hunt. As hard as the black urge for vengeance use to drive me back then, I'd forgotten what a basic animal rush it also used to be for me. I also tried to ignore that it was probably the vampire half of my nature that liked and thrived on that part so much.

I continued to move slowly and cautiously, probing every shadow around me, testing every scent that drifted by, and examined the smallest of sounds that came my way.

I perhaps completed nearly half a circuit of the parkland before the signs I was looking for alerted me to the presence of something that would draw my prey.

About two hundred yards ahead of me, a human female voice uttered a sharp alarmed cry, followed almost immediately by a deep grunt that could only have come from a human male.

I next heard something heavy hit the ground just as split second later. The human female's cried abruptly cut off almost immediately after I heard the first body fall.

Just ahead of me, one or more red-eye vampires were attacking a human couple. Any Rogue within a mile and a half radius of the scene would recognize the struggle for what it was, just as I had, and they would come running to make their own kills.


	38. Chapter 37

Chapter Thirty-Seven:

I covered that ground in about half a minute.

I could have been there sooner, but I took a slower pace so as not to alert my real prey. I didn't want to risk prematurely cutting across the path of any Rogues moving in, and alerting them to my presence. Slow and cautious was the game plan for tonight.

It was probably too late for the human couple at any rate. The vampires were probably already feeding before the bodies struck the ground, the kindest thing I could do for them would be to let the vamps finish feeding to make sure they were really dead.

Otherwise, they might come back as vampires themselves, if they managed to make it through the three-day torture of the change.

Still… the knowledge that people had died in the best manner opened to them under the circumstances wasn't very comforting, especially when I began to scent fresh blood at about seventy-five yards from the scene of the attack.

My fangs ached behind my mask as soon as I caught the blood scent, and slid down. I tried not to think about this new perplexing reaction, which had started the day Angel had un-wittedly struck her mug of mixed cattle and human blood under my nose as a prank. It was bad enough that the girl herself stirred the reaction in me for completely different reasons. It was unsettling after all this time to think I might be closer to vampire than I wanted to freely admit.

I attempted to tell myself that it was only the hunt that was stirring me, even though I knew well that it was a self-serving lie.

The scene I found when I arrived was very much what I had expected it to be, but that didn't make it any easier to view.

A pair of young male vamps were posed over the still bodies of a young man and woman, both so busy gorging on the blood of the couple that they were ignoring everything else that was going on around them. They were huddled too low to the ground, which severely limited your sense of smell, especially when over a new kill while the blood was so fresh and overwhelming to heightened senses.

Such neglect was a typical, and sometimes fatal, mistake of recently turned or very young vampires.

I silently eased into a good position after surveying the immediate area for incoming Rogues, and drew several arrows from the quiver. I nocked the first one to my bowstring as I settled in to wait for the real predators to arrive.

I had to curb my sudden urge to kill both red-eyed vamps, reminding myself that I was after much bigger game tonight.

The recurve bow was gripped in my left hand, where my little finger also pinched the shafts of two more arrows to the outside of the bow's riser, in a ready position to be nocked and released in rapid secession.

The technique was ancient, and used by both Samurai and Ninja archers. It also had been perfected by the infamous Mongolian horsemen during the time of Genghis Khan. Using it at this range, I could put three arrows in the air before the first one had struck its target.

I would wait patiently to see what developed. Consoling myself with the knowledge that if none of the Rogues showed up by the time this pair was finished feeding, at least these two vamps were enjoying their last meals regardless.

If none of the vampire hunters took these two as bait, I would kill them, dispose of the bodies so as not to warn any Rogues that might stumble across them, and then move on to see what else I could find, as I had a few hours left to me yet.

It was a fairly big park for one hunter to thoroughly cover after all.

As fate would have it, I need not have worried about this situation not panning out, because within a minute we had company. Before the two red-eyes had finished feeding; I detected the scent of burnt copper on the breeze, just as I made out stealthy movement in the shadows and trees behind the vampires I was using as lures.

The Rogues had crept onto the scene, and using the red-eyes' poor tactical position, had out flanked the unsuspecting pair.

I myself froze so not to attract any attention, remaining still until I was sure no additional Rogues were approaching the waylay from my direction as I was down wind from them all. I managed to locate at least three newcomers as they settled into superior positions to ambush the unsuspecting feeders.

They crept in very close using the trees and shadows, and waited. I heard or saw nothing more coming in from my location. And judging by how close these Rogues were getting to their quarry before attacking, I figured they must be only three in total number, and doing their best to cut off any possible escape routes for the feasting vamps.

I briefly speculated on what they were still waiting for a few moments later, when they still hadn't made a move. Why they didn't pounce once they were in position, and had the best advantage they were going to have in this instance?

Then it occurred to me, they were waiting for the two vamps to finish their feeding before they took them.

I could only conclude that perhaps they preferred freshly fed vampires over ones that hadn't eaten recently. Just as I once learned that even the golden-eyed vamps preferred the blood of predators to vegetarian animals.

There must be some better value in the blood of a satiated vampire to the Rogues.

At any rate, I no longer had to worry about the two bloodsuckers that had just killed two people; their fates were just about signed and sealed.

I only had to wait for the Rogues to make their move, and see exactly what it was I was dealing with as far as their true numbers, just to be sure.

The wait really wasn't much longer, though it seemed like an eternity to me as I waited for something to happen. I guess I was out of practice with using my patience after fifty years.

Both the vamps finally finished, at close to the same moment, and as they attempted to rise from the cooling corpses they'd made, the Rogues sprang their trap.

Two leaped from overheard branches, using their body weight to drive the vampires back down on top of their dead prey. The human hunting vampires tried to fight, but their limbs were hindered as they became entangle with the limbs and clothing of their kills. Human bones snapped and became limp and unpredictable, compounding the red-eyed vamps efforts to free themselves.

The third Rogue I had detected rushed in at ground level from a nearby shadow to close with the group. This last one quickly ducked down and I saw it make several very quick movements that caused the pinned vampires to howl out in un-imaged pain.

When that figure stood upright again, I saw it held what looked like several large clumps of flesh in both its talon-fingered hands. He held the chucks over his head, and squeezed them like fruit, to let the blood inside drain into his mouth before tossing the chunks of flesh aside. I then realized the third Rogue had torn out the calf muscles in all four legs of the unlucky pair of vamps, rendering them unable to escape.

I assumed this was the Rogues' version of hamstringing their quarry, as it had the same effect as slicing the Achilles tendon did on humans. If your legs were taken out, you obviously can't run away no matter if you were human or undead.

I suppressed a shutter; because I could only think about how glad I was that the Rogues had not had the opportunity to use that very same technique on Angel when they had first attacked her that fateful night.

The other two Rogues pinning the red-eyes down had already torn into their throats and were beginning to feed. The third paused for a moment, to lick its bloody hands clean. When it was finished, it threw back its head and unleashed an unearthly howl into the night.

I silently cursed as I realized it might have been calling the rest of its coven mates to come join the feast. The very last thing I needed was to be waist deep in a coven of Rogue vamps!

Especially when I only needed or wanted just one of them alive to answer questions.

I quickly moved into a better shooting position and drew back the bowstring, feeling the strong limbs bend as I took up the one hundred and seventy-five pound draw. I doubted that there was a full human that could draw the weapon, but you needed draw poundage that high to penetrate a vamp's hide… and titanium shafted arrows to withstand the stress of both release and impact.

The composite limbs of this bow were still new even if they have been in storage for decades, and weren't completely broken-in yet all though I had shot several practice rounds with it that afternoon back at the house. The limbs gave the tiniest of creaks as I almost reached full draw. The sound was almost nonexistent, and a human standing five feet away surely never would have heard it.

But the howling Rogue vamp did.

The howl abruptly trailed off, as the vampire-hunting Rogue lowered his head just the slightest bit to look curiously in my direction. I doubted if it could see me right away with the way I blended with the dark and shadows, but I froze anyway.

The creature looked my way for several seconds, but apparently couldn't spot me as I suspected. The Rogue turned his head to scan in other directions, and as soon as his eyes left me I competed my draw.

My right hand found its anchor-point just under my jaw line and locked in, just as the vamp start to track his gaze back my way again. I lined up the shaft of the arrow with my target, and then hissed lightly through my teeth in barely a whisper.

The Rogue's head immediately spun back in my direction. It could have been anything, a bit of movement, a glint of starlight off the razor edge of the broadhead, but something must have given my position away this time because he locked right on me.

The Rogue's eye's narrowed and he started to bare his teeth in a scowl, but I loosed the shaft as soon as it lined up where I wanted it.

The first arrow leaped from the bow rest with a sharp hum, the next two arrows followed behind it in less than a human heart beat.

The first shaft slammed into the howler's still partially opened mouth before he could close it, and drove him backwards a step. The second arrows joined the first in the same spot, and had enough force left to punch out the vamp's neck and bury the broadhead into the thick lower branch of a tree the Rogue had backed himself into. The trick barbs in both arrow shafts slammed open just after impact and buried themselves into the wound channel, hooking into vampire flesh to hold the Rogue tightly in place.

I usually do my best to plan my shots like that, but this time I have to admit is was sheer luck the vamp staggered back that far. I had also hoped that one of the arrows would have punctured the spinal column at the throat, but no such luck, as I could see the Rogue's feet kicking as it tried to free himself from the barbs.

The third arrow plowed into forehead of the closest feeding Rogue, just as she picked her head up to see what all the commotion was about. She did a somersault with the impact and ended up on her back just a few feet from her prey, and the dead human that vamp had been feeding on prior to its own sudden demise.

That Rogue wasn't truly dead of course, but several inches of folded-steel broadhead and titanium arrow shaft were enough to scramble her brains and shut her down for a short period of time.

In all the years of fighting and killing vampires, I had never found a better method at evening the odds against a vamp then something that disconnects the brain from the body, either permanently or temporary. So head and spine shots, and shots that pinned them to something solid were the only two rules of thumb.

Not much else you can do against a creature that's virtually indestructible… when you're not.

The third and final Rogue rocketed to his feet just as I nocked a new arrow from the quiver. It hissed in my general direction as he zeroed in on where the attack was coming from. It took a leap toward me over the bodies to cover half the distance that separated us and I released as soon as his feet hit the ground.

The speed of an arrow is deceptive when viewed from behind as if leave the bow or from in front as it heads toward you, this vamp found that out the hard way.

He made a move to the snatch the shaft out of the air, most likely to show his contempt for being attacked with such an antiquated weapon. He misjudged and closed his hand around the spinning broadhead, and barked in surprise when the blades shredded his hand and fingers. He probably wasn't use to being injured either.

The Rogue growled at me as it cradled his wounded limb, and instead of continuing his charge it turned away, deciding withdrawal was the better part of valor, and began to run in the other direction.

I nocked, drew, and shot in one smooth motion. My next arrow caught up with him just as he past the bodies laid out on the ground. It took him in the thigh and penetrated all the way through, as I wanted this one alive for the moment to question.

The special barbs in the arrow shafts snapped open just after impact, making the arrow extra hard to pull out of the vamp's body.

He staggered for a few steps, but that single wound to the leg barely slowed him down. I put another shaft into this other leg, and that slowed him down quite a bit now. He was sort of hopping forward, while fumbling with trying to remove the arrows at the same time, when a third and a fourth arrow hit him through both legs and effectively pinned them together to hobble him.

This time he went down in a head-over-heels tumble.


	39. Chapter 38

Chapter Thirty-Eight:

I jumped up from my ambush position, shaking my head at the annoyance of having to waste five arrows to bring one vampire down alive, and ran to the scene. I unlimbered the Banshee from over my right shoulder as I came close.

As I passed the howler vamp, still pinned through the mouth to a tree limb and struggling to get free by pulling himself down the now bend arrow shafts, I swung the Banshee backhand, and cleaved through both of the Rogue's hands as he held them up to ward off the blow and then straight through his neck to severe the head. His body flopped to the ground while his head remained pinned to the tree branch like some grotesque Christmas ornament.

Without stopping, I moved to the second vamp, the one that I shot through the forehead, and gave her the same quick treatment.

I had to walk about thirty more yards to get to my live one, and its safe to say he wasn't very happy to see me coming.

He gave up trying the pull the arrows out of his legs, a task which the trick shaft barbs were making very difficult, and started to try and lunge at me. I was disappointed to see his wounded hand nearly healed.

I gave him credit for trying, but I dodged his attempts to grab me and rewarded him with an armored boot to the head for his troubles. A technique that works on vamps as well as it does humans if applied with enough force… for a couple of seconds anyway if you're at least half as strong as they are.

I knelt down near him, just out of his reach of course, and set my bow down to one side. I waited while he took those few seconds to find his wits again. I forced him to prop his head up by sticking the sharp tip of the Banshee up one of his nostrils and lifting slightly to get his attention. Of course he made a grab for the blade and I let him, just to see the look on his face when he cut his hand. After that, he wanted no part in touching the big bush knife.

"Don't have a lot of time for this bullshit, bucko," I finally said to him through my black facemask. "I have a couple of questions which you're going to answer for me."

In reply, the hunter vamp sneered.

"Get bent, human asshole," he said. "The only thing I'm gonna do is rip your head off and piss down the stump!" He spit a wad of venom at me that I avoid with a slight tilt of my head. It missed, but not by much.

I sighed with annoyance, and then twisted the Banshee slightly to rip it out the side of his nostril, hauled off, and then slapped him across the face with the flat of the blade for extra good measure.

Even hitting him that way, the sharp metal torn a good part of his left cheek off his face.

That all had to hurt, even to a vampire.

I had hoped that would make him polite, and get me some cooperation. Instead, he just grinned.

"Your ass is mine now, shithead," he told me with a smirk.

A slight involuntary flicker of his strangely burning red-eyes over my right shoulder told me I was in fact in deep trouble.

"Ah shit!" I cursed, and my Bujinkan training took over… and for the moment, saved my life once again.

Without thinking I flipped the Banshee in my right-hand into a reverse grip and took a duel-handed hold on the long handle, and then drove it to the rear and slightly upward between my right arm and side.

I felt the familiar resistance of the blade finding flesh and heard someone shriek in pain and surprise behind me.

I didn't hesitate further.

I pushed in further and at the same time rotated the blade to the side ninety-degrees in a classic Iai-do technique, to open a wound channel and break the natural vacuum of the body on the blade, and then tossed myself into a left forty-five degree forward shoulder roll. I held tight to the bush knife's handle, letting my rolling weight yank the Banshee's blade the rest of the way free for me.

I should have known to check to see if the Rogues had posted a forth member as a lookout to cover their flank! I had already noted to myself just a little while ago that the two red-eyes had already made that particular error tonight; it should have been fresh in my mind that more experienced Rogues wouldn't have made that very same proletarian mistake.

Stupid amateur blunder if there ever was one!

The roll got me clear for the moment from my attacker to the rear, but it carried me within range of the wounded vamp on the ground.

And as I tried to roll back to my feet, I felt his hand lock around my ankle in a nearly unbreakable steel grip.

Needless to say I never made it to my feet again. Instead, I fell flat on my ass as my leg was yanked out from under me.

"Told you your ass was mine!" the vamp holding me growled.

I looked up and for the first time saw whom the fourth Rogue was. Standing just a few yards away and holding a huge gaping hole in her bleeding stomach, while also looking extremely pissed off, was the biggest blonde woman with a brush-cut that I have ever seen.

This woman had to stand about six-foot-eight, and had a build like a female Arnold Schwarzenegger.

I couldn't spare any more time to look at the Valkyrie that was probably going to chill me good in a matter of a few seconds, because I felt another hand slap against my calf and a heavy weight pull on me.

I looked back down to find my new vamp friend – who I momentarily named Chuckles the Legless Rogue, because of his sparkling personality – literally crawling his way up my leg like it was a rope.

I realized I couldn't very well hack at either of his hands or arms without risking taking off one of my own legs in the process. I was fairly certain the polycarbonate armor on my lower limbs wasn't going to stop the Banshee from chopping right through it.

And unlike full vampires, I can't reattach body parts that have been lopped off.

So I opted for doing the cleaver thing to his head, just as soon as he hauled it up within range for me.

I raised the big bush knife up over my head to do just that, and paused just for a second to let Chuckles take that one last pull that would put his head right where I wanted it.

I realized the blunder I made when I felt one of Broomhilda's meat hooks lock around my right wrist like a massive handcuff, preventing me from ventilating Chuckle's brain pan with the heavy blade.

"Oh damn!" I muttered as I realized how dire my predicament had become.

Chuckles… well, chuckled as he saw my situation, while Blondzilla hissed at me and gave my arm a yank which nearly torn my hand off. I refused to drop the Banshee despite my pain, because that would surely mean my death.

Lucky for me, for the moment the big female Rogue only had one hand free to restrain me, as the other was still temporarily busy holding her guts in place while her stomach continued to quickly heal.

That condition obviously wasn't going to last much longer, and I knew I was going to be in real big trouble as soon as she had both her hands free to dismember me.

That is, if my crawling playmate didn't beat her to it in the next few seconds!

Chuckles pulled himself up another handhold on my leg. He suddenly made a lunging chop at my thigh with his teeth; only to have the tough titanium and plastic armor covering it defeat his bite. His teeth couldn't find purchase in the material and they simply skidded across the armor accompanied with a rather silly squeaking sound. I silently thanked my lucky stars that my untested faith in the material hadn't been misplaced after all.

Chuckled the Rogue cursed darkly at being denied an easy kill and glared at me. I tilted my head as if the say, 'what did you expect?'… and then lifted my other leg and slammed my boot heel into his face.

The shot was a good one, but didn't do much in the way of damage, other than to annoy Chuckles. The Rogue merely cursed some more, and then dragged himself over so he could better pin both my limbs down now, and then began to pull himself further up my body… obviously heading for my less protected face and head.

I was glad in his anger that it never occurred to him to simply rip the armor plate away, as its leather and nylon straps were the weak link in the design. I had been thinking about replacing them with Kevlar, but had never gotten around to it. I immediately put the upgrade down on my list of things to do right away… if I lived passed tonight!

I knew I had to do something to slow him down a bit while I figured a way out of this, and before the pair of them got the idea to work together and make a wish, using me as a wishbone!

The situation might have been comical… if it had been happening to someone else.

My options were rather limited with the Banshee and my right arm being caught in the big blonde's steel grip. With my left hand I started desperately searching my belt and pockets until I hit upon one of my Shuriken cases near my left hip.

Sometimes called 'throwing stars' by the uneducated public and martial arts movie buffs, Shuriken actually meant "hand thrown blade" in Japanese, which can mean any type of throwing blade not just stars. Actual throwing stars are called, "Shaken" in Japanese.

A six-pointed Shaken is what came out into my hand from the case when I opened it. I might have preferred a throwing spike or knife, but this would do. Unlike in the movies and myth, shuriken rarely killed humans, much less vampires. And to kill a human, it had to be coated with poison.

Not something you really wanted to play with if you were a Ninja, because if you accidentally scratched yourself with your own weapon, you were just as done for as the guy you had intended using it on. And the most common poison used in ancient Japan anyway was rust, which took a while to kill your victim by tetanus.

Needless to say, vamps didn't have much to fear from Lockjaw.

What Shuriken were actually designed for, and very good at… was a distraction. They were meant to be thrown at your enemy to give them something else to think about while you escaped, or while you closed the distance and to give you an advantage in killing your opponent.

A very useful tool to have in the days when everybody was just armed with swords.

In my case, I very definitely needed a good distraction. I palmed the blade in my left hand, and when Chuckles looked back up at me to grin as he drew nearer, I let it fly, backed by all my half-vampire strength. It was a good thing he was so close, as I'm not very good with throwing accurately with my left hand. The Shaken was made of the same folded steel as my other vampire hunting weapons, and one of its points plowed into the Rogue's right eye, while the next point above it managed to bury itself partway into Chuckles' forehead.

The Vamp screamed as he suddenly went blind in that eye, and then cursed everyone in my family going back several generations.

I was just getting ready to try the same trick on Blondie, and hoping I could make the throw backhand. I never got a chance to find out because apparently she was a fast learner, having just witnessed what I did to Chuckles.

Before I could reach for a second Shaken, the female Rogue violently twisted my right wrist; locking up every joint in my arm and making me see stars for a moment. I was almost certain she had dislocated my shoulder but the fact that I was still able to keep a hold of the Banshee negated that possibility.

She'd come pretty close though.

I was just about getting ready to kiss my half-vampire ass good-bye, when a low reverberating growl like a jet aircraft getting ready to take off registered on all three of us.

A second later something that looked about as big as a semi-truck from where I was sitting, tore from the trees and shadows, and rumbled at the three of us like a freight train out of control…

It slammed into the big blonde Rogue who was nearly ripping my arm off.

The woman was there one split-second and gone the very next like she never existed. Somewhere off behind me, I could hear snarling that reminded me of a huge buzz saw.

A huge… very angry… buzz saw.

Miraculously, the Banshee was still in my almost pulverized hand… and I didn't waste a second checking my limb for damage before bringing the big bush knife down to cleave Chuckles' now _not-so-smiling _face in two.

Poor Chuckles was still trying to pry the throwing star out of his face and having only one working eye left to him at the moment, didn't see it coming until it was too late to even scream again.

I kicked Chuckles' twitching hands off my legs, and then sprang back to my feet.

My bow laid near-by where I had originally set it down, and was back in my hands within half a heartbeat with a new arrow nocked to the string.

The Banshee's blade was now quivering in the ground besides my right foot, ready to be snatched up again if needed, as I traded the weapons.

There was a terrible racket coming from those dense shrubs, where occasionally I could vaguely make out rough shapes tumbling around. Even though it really wasn't blocking my view I took a moment to rip off my facemask and head wrap, so I could see and hear better without the cloth covering me. I needed every edge I could get at the moment, no matter how slight it was!

I'm not ashamed to admit I was scared almost out of my wits, I'd be a bigger damned idiot than I already was if I wasn't scared. My fangs were down and locked in place with the threat of the unknown facing me.

I really wanted to know for my own benefit and self-survival what happened to that blonde Rogue? She was just too damn big and I was wishing I'd brought something a lot bigger than a bow…something like a bazooka!

And I wanted to know what the hell was that thing that carried her away like a paper doll?

I didn't relish the idea of either one of them stalking me through the park if I turned tail and ran for it right then.

From the bushes, came a sudden squeal, followed by an obvious death rattle. From which combatant the sound came from, I hadn't a clue.

Then there was just the sound of only one thing moving around in there, something big – which told me nothing – and it sounded like whoever it was, was tearing the loser apart in a fury.

That still didn't tell me anything!

I held my ground, definitely not daring to turn my back even for a split-second on whatever was in there now. Either way, the big blonde or that huge blur that took her, I was pretty sure I wasn't much going to like whatever finally showed itself.

The entire night had become a bust, as I'd lost my intended stoolpigeon with Chuckles getting his skull split like a coconut.

There was no reason to keep hanging around now, as finding another Rogue to interrogate wasn't going to be happening… not after this cluster screw!

The only thing holding me there was the previously stated reason I didn't want whoever was in the bushes tracking me on my way out of the park.

Where it could ambush me from out of the shadows at any time it chose.

The tactician Sun Tzu said something about it being better to stand and face your enemy on ground of your own choosing. I guess I was going to find out if he was right, or if he was just talking through his hat.

The thrashing in the undergrowth lasted another minute or so, then quieted down.

Within a few seconds the brushwood began rattling, the sound getting louder as something made its way slowly through them and drew closer to me.

I drew the bow to full draw, holding my breath to steady the shot. Blondie or whatever had snatched her away from the fight, whichever was coming out, I was only going to get the one shot at it… and I wasn't all that sure I was going to be able to make a successful grab for the Banshee after I let the arrow fly, as the distance was too close.

So I had better make this one arrow count!


	40. Chapter 39

Chapter Thirty-Nine:

Small branches and leaves moved in front of me, and then slowly parted before a massive long snout and furred head.

The furry body that followed easily stood over five-foot at its front shoulders. I was so shocked at the sight before me that had the creature charged me at that moment; I probably would have forgotten to loose the arrow.

The shaggy silver-fur of the beast glowed in the moonlight as the creature slowly cleared the brush, not in the slightest rush – lucky for me.

It paused to gaze at me and my drawn bow with its big yellow-brown eyes, and then with a canine grin that showed its long curved teeth, sat down on its rear hunches to continue looking me over.

"Nice doggy," I said softly, after a moment of this weird standoff.

The dog, or whatever it was, cocked its head at me and huffed through its noise as if it were offended by my off the cuff remark.

It yawned casually, showing its great fanged teeth once more, which made mine seem pitiful in comparison, and then slowly rose to its feet again.

I tensed on the bowstring, ready to release now that I'd had a moment to recover my wits. Instead of attacking it keep rising upward… and shifting!

The creature reared up on its hind legs as its features blurred and seem to explode, flowing into the figure of a man.

A naked man… who when he was done shifting appeared to be an old Indian if I were any judge.

The stranger smiled at me, as I watched with what I'm reasonably sure was opened-mouth amazement, then he flicked back a strand of his long white hair before casually reaching out with the other hand to lean against a near-by tree trunk.

"I'd appreciated it kindly, if you didn't shoot me there, Chief," he said to me, while flicking a gnarled forefinger at my still drawn bow. "It be a hellva' way to thank the fellow that just saved your skin."

"Okay… this is new," I managed to say, as I carefully eased off the tension on the bowstring. I figured if this guy in his creature form was able to kill the blonde vamp, then he could have taken care of little old me very easily long before now if he had wanted to. "What… and who the hell are you?" I asked, even though I had a feeling I might know the answer to that already. I had just never encountered one of these creatures before in real life is all.

The old man smiled at me again.

"Name's Gary White Crow, and this is my park. And I'm a _Wolf_ by the way, not a damn dog! I'm the protector here," he told me.

"Protector?" I repeated. He said it like I was supposed to know what it meant… but I in fact didn't have a clue. The word 'protector' didn't jive with what I was thinking at the moment.

"Sure, sure" the Indian grinned. "Scared tribal duty and all that. Guard against the bloodsuckers; keep the muggers and the other undesirables out. Make the place safe for the decent folks to enjoy. Make sure no one litters on slow days. That type of thing."

I glanced around to look at the two dead humans, recalling the rash of increased attacks lately in the area.

"Doesn't seem like you're doing too good of a job lately," I said, recalling all the recent news reports that had drew me there.

The old man frowned a bit… after all; I was being a bit surly.

And this was his park… or so he said it was.

"Well, with all the Buffalo crap going on in Seattle lately, I've had to expand my territory a tad more than I normally like to cover actually. And I am getting on in years. I've had to spend a lot of time on the Eastside trying to rein in the ticks there. They're trying to make more of themselves all over the damned city! Can't be everywhere at once, you know."

"Sorry. I guess not," I admitted, I hadn't known that fact about the vamps expanding their numbers at all.

"And you must be the one they use to call, 'the Devil'," he added, his wide grin returning. "You're lucky I cut your trail about sixty years ago, back in the days when you were still giving them hell, and I remembered your scent. Otherwise I might have taken a bite out of you myself earlier tonight when you first entered the park."

"Gee, thanks," I replied.

"Don't mention it," he went on, as if he'd in fact done me a big favor. "I heard you were dead."

"Rumors. They think Elvis is dead too," I said flippantly, not really sure how much of anything I wanted, or should, tell this guy at the moment.

"Course not!" the old Indian surprised me by saying in a serious tone. "The King is a Skin-walker too. He's retired and owns a bar up Anchorage way."

I looked at the old man as if he were crazy, which at that point I was fairly sure he was.

"Well, you know how rumors get started and how reliable they really are," I said more to appease him.

The strange old man snickered good-naturedly.

"I hear ya," he agreed, and then rolled his eyes good-naturedly. "You should hear what the white-eyes say about this place. They think its haunted of all things. You'd think I'd catch a break and get a little bit of credit for keeping this place clean. It's a lot of work!"

He casually waved a hand around to indicate he was speaking about the park.

I shrugged noncommittally.

"Well, you know what they say about _no good deed_," I reminded him. "So what exactly is it that you're doing around here, if you don't mind me asking?"

It was the old guy's turn to shrug nonchalantly.

"Just a little police action, you might say. You know, keep the number of vamps down. Chase a few muggers over the fence, occasionally catch a few of them and give them a lesson they soon wouldn't forget. Give the gangs a good reason to be elsewhere when they decide to come around. But mostly I see to the bloodsuckers. Normally, I let those new vamp hunters go when I can. They seem to only feed on other vamps… makes my job easier if they're killing each other off, right?"

I shrugged again. "I suppose it does. So why did you make an acceptation for me? I figure you pretty much know what I am by now; a vamp's a vamp after all. So why not take me out too? Especially seeing that I've been out of circulation for so long."

The Indian chuckled.

"Compadre', I knew what you were back in the 40's. You don't smell exactly like they do, but you're not a mundane, or one of my people either," he told me, while jerking a thumb at the Rogue's corpses. "But you can't fool this ole' sniffer." He then tapped the side of his hawk-like nose. "I figured back then if you were on the warpath against them, that's all right in my book. That makes us on the same side the way I see it. I've never been a stickler for all the pack rules anyway… the ones that say all vamps are the same. I've been around long enough to learn that even vamps can be righteous if they want to be. But those types are few and far between."

I still wasn't exactly sure if I'd agree with all of his statements right at the moment, but I nodded my thanks for not killing me to the old man anyway.

"I figured if you were back for some reason and hunting the Rogues, you had a good motive and I wasn't going to interfere. I only stepped in because you let 'heap-big-woman' get the drop on you. Pretty amateurish move not to check for a lookout, you must be pretty rusty. You're lucky I was there to save your ass."

"Guess I was. Thanks," I grudgingly admitted. "I am a little out of practice and a _bit_ rusty it seems. I'm having a problem with this one coven of Hunters – Rogues… and I needed one of these alive tonight to answer some questions for me. Looks like I'll have to start all over again," I complained.

The old Indian nodded in understanding.

"This is about that little gold-eye that got away, isn't it? She's got that one pack of hunters in quite the uproar."

"'_That __one__ pack'_?" I caught and repeated. "You mean there's more than one pack of Rogues running around here?"

"Hell yeah!" White Crow replied. "Where the tarnation you been hiding, son? Seattle's got em' up to it's ears and eyeballs. It's only the one group that's got a real bug up its ass over your little vamp. They got their little notes pasted up all over town lookin' for her. She must have done something real bad to piss them off."

"You know about the blood posters?" I asked incredulously.

"Sure do. And I can smell her on you too now. So I reckon you're where she's gotten too."

I nodded, since there was no point in lying if he already had knew about Angel, and had proof she was with me. "Yeah… they've been trying to kill her since the moment we met."

"Yup, heard that too. Heard also it's a matter of payback for one of their own." He reached up and scratched the back of his head. "When they get a itch like that on their collective rear-ends, they usually don't let go until it's been scratched good."

I nodded once more.

"Appreciate it if you kept where she's gone confidential," I asked him.

He made a locking and throwing away the key motion over his lips.

"They won't hear a thing about it from me," he promised. "Well, you lucked out in another way tonight, Chief. I just might be able to save you some trouble."

"How's that?" I asked, with a hint of suspicion.

The old Indian ignored my cynicism and smiled at me again.

"Because I'm guessing you want to know more about those wanted posters, and I just might have those answers that you're looking for," he announced. "I get around and hear a lot of things. Especially when it comes to the ticks around here. I kinda make it my business to know what the sneaky bastards are up too as much as I can."

I raised an eyebrow in interest.

"Okay, we'll see then," I told him. "But can you do one other thing for me before we continue our little chat?"

"What's that?"

"Put some damn clothes on," I requested bluntly.

The old man looked started, and glanced downward at himself quickly. He then looked back up at me, and this time his grin was a bit sheepish.

"Opps! Sorry! I forget sometimes," he apologized. "We're not big on puritan protocols. I got my clothes stashed a little way up that trial." He pointed in a direction, and then took off in a bare-footed jog that way.

"You must be great fun at parties if that's the case," I muttered as he ran by.


	41. Chapter 40

Chapter Forty:

While my strange new acquaintance went to make himself presentable, I took the time to collect the Banshee, and see to disposing of the mess that I'd made. I dragged the five vamp bodies in the small clearing some distance away from the pair of human victims, and started a new pile.

The Rogues had partially dismembered the first two ticks during their feeding, so it took me a few minutes to find and gather up all the parts. I stacked the bodies like logs, pausing only long enough to see if any of the arrows I'd used where salvageable.

None of them were, as I thought might be the case. Titanium was stronger than plain steel, and had a tendency to twist quite a bit before a vampire could succeed in snapping off the shafts, which was another reason why I used it. The vamps in their struggles had mangled the arrows beyond saving. They were pretty much just scrap now.

I was however able to get my Shaken back from Chuckles' head, which was something at least.

Soon I had as much of the vamps gathered as I could find, and I hadn't been able to find much of the sixth one, the big blonde Rogue, other than a foot and what I think was part of one of her arms.

And I really, really didn't want to know what the Indian had done with the rest of her.

I pulled a long stainless steel tube from a pocket of my load-bearing field vest once I was finished collecting torsos, heads, and various other limbs.

I twisted off the rubberized cap, and dumped the entire liquid contents of the container onto the stack of bodies.

White Crow rejoined me just then, not even attempting to be stealthy as he approached.

"What ya doing?" he asked with some interest as I finished emptying out the tube. I replaced the cap, and returned the cylinder to its pouch.

Instead of answering, I indicated that he needed to keep his distance, and then withdrew a second similar steel container from the opposite side of my web gear.

I definitely wouldn't want these two items mixing together on accident while they were physically on my person, let me tell you that.

I uncapped this one, and tipped the tube upward to let its contents slide out into my hand. From this one, came a slim cylinder made of a form of sugar glass, the same material they use in the movie to make break away windows. The cylinder was full of a grainy white powder.

I crushed the new container in my hand, and then dumped the whole thing onto the bodies from an arm's length away. I quickly backed up a few steps as soon as my hand was empty.

The powder that was in the glass tube drifted downward, and as soon as it touched the liquid I'd poured out from the first stainless tube, a intense chemical reaction ignited a fire as a result.

The fire spread quickly as the components were used up, then it began to feed itself on the body fats that even vampires still have. This reaction was pretty much based on the same principle as the phenomenon of spontaneous human combustion.

The old Indian whistled sharply, as the bodies were rapidly consumed in a white-hot blaze.

"That's a pretty good trick," he said. "Mind sharing that one with me?"

I turned to look at him at the request. In the light of the fire I finally was able to get a really good look at him. He was now dressed in faded jeans and an old blue flannel shirt. The legs of the jeans were now tucked into the tops of what looked like an unlaced pair of well-worn combat boots. His face was well lined and he appeared to be much older than I had first estimated.

"Sorry, trade secret," I said, and it in fact was. I had learned how to make these chemicals during my ninjutsu training in Japan. And believe it or not, I was still sworn to secrecy almost a hundred years later about a lot of the things they taught me, the formula for this particular mixture being one of them.

White Crow didn't appear to be very disappointed by my answer, or if he was, he hid it well. He simply shrugged as if the say, 'Oh well'.

I did catch him taking the opportunity to examine me in the light, just the same way as I was him.

We watched the mound of vampires burn for a moment, and then the old man grunted in satisfaction that the bodies would be properly disposed of. He then thrust his chin at the two human victims still lying where they had been attacked.

"What about them? Why didn't you pile them on the fire too?" he wanted to know.

"They deserve to be found," I replied. "At least their families will know what happened to them. Maybe news of their deaths will keep more people out of the parks at night."

"Maybe," White Crow somewhat agreed.

I turned again to look at the old Indian.

"If you were near-by," I asked. "Why did you let them die? Why did you let me use them as bait in your park?"

The Were pursed his lips, telling me the decision had weighed just as heavily on him as it had on me.

"Like I said… I figured you were back for a reason. I heard all the stories about you; the ticks hated and feared you like no other. With all that's going on with them breeding more of themselves, more than one old wolf can handle, I also figured you being back was the Great Spirit's will. So I wasn't going to interfere with what you were about… even if it meant an innocent or two had to die. In war there's always collateral damage, Chief."

"Besides, the damn bloodsuckers will just go and take someone else during the day if they can't find them here at night."

"Doing the best I can," I countered.

"Welcome to my world, paleface," the Indian answered with a little snort. It was obvious to me then that the old man must have had to make similar calls in the past concerning his own plans. Some people he was able to save, some he had to let die.

There wasn't much more to add on that account, so I just nodded.

"I have been talking to some others to lend me a hand. I'm hoping to have some help soon," the Indian said distractedly. The somewhat bitter way he said it, told me that the talks probably weren't progressing as well as he liked. So I thought it best to leave the subject alone and mind my own business.

"So, you seem to know who I am," I said instead a few seconds later. "You mind telling me your story then?"

"My name's White Crow as I said," the old man began. "I'm a Dakota Protector, Santee tribe. I shift into a wolf and I don't much like vampires in my territory. At least the red-eyed ones for the most part, I mean. I get a little ticked when the gold eyes thin the rabbit population out a bit too much, cuz I like a good bunny stew now and then myself… but I can live with that."

"Dakota Sioux?" I repeated. "You're kind of far from your normal territory, aren't you?"

The Indian shrugged again.

"There was already a Alpha male back home, and I didn't much cotton to being a Beta or lower… so I left while I was still on good terms with my pack. Became a Lone Wolf and traveled around for a while to see some of the world. Decided I liked it better than being stuck on the Rez. I figured the rest of the world, even the white-eye's world, deserved a Protector, not just the reservations. So I moved around as the mood took me, claiming parks like this one, or opened state lands as my territory for short spells. Made sure the vamps stayed in check."

"Must be a lonely life," I added, drawing on my own similar life as a reference.

White Crow shook his head.

"Its not too bad. I have plenty of company whenever I want it. I hang out with the Skokomish when I want. Or head south once in a while to visit the Yakama tribe. I wear the feathered-end of a broken arrow in my belt while I'm in either of those places to let the local packs know I'm not poaching in their territory. Most of the time they invite me to hunt with them as an honored guest, and to stay as long as I like… as long as I'm respectful.

"Helps avoid some misunderstandings if someone can tell me the local pack rules, as a few of the packs have treaties with covens of gold-eyes that might live near-by. There's a coven of gold-eyes up Alaska way that has understanding with the local lone Alpha there. I met them about seventy years ago. Not bad people if you can get use to the smell. Hear tell recently there's supposed to be a similar situation over in La Push with the pack there. Never been there, even though it's close by. Been keeping myself confined to Seattle the last twenty – twenty-four years or so. Decided to lay down some roots for a while, seeing the town is crawling with vamps. It looks like they have some special plans for the town, and I find I'm curious to know what they are. Haven't been able to find out exactly what it is, and why they have all these rules regarding Seattle. All I mostly get is hearsay and rumors… damned bloodsuckers!"

He looked at me, and seemed to suddenly recall to whom he was talking to.

"No offense meant," he added apologetically.

"None taken… seeing I really don't survive on blood," I countered.

He blinked at that statement, and then peered down his hawk-like nose to see if I was pulling his leg.

"Well, I'll be damned," he said, with a light good humored slap on his thigh when he concluded I was being totally honest with him. That cockeyed smile returned to his weathered face. "Even at my age you learn something new every day."

"Well… don't get too excited. As far as I know I'm the only one like me," I told him.

He folded his arms across his chest, and lightly bounced on the balls of his feet for a few seconds as he regarded me with a new smile that I thought belonged more on a child with a brand spanking new toy. It seemed despite my comment to the contrary, the Indian was pleased with his new knowledge… either that, or it was he found me mildly entertaining in some way.

I felt myself start to frown, thinking that if White Crow was that thrilled to learn something about me, that he really needed to do something drastic about spicing up his life all together.

He finally unfolded one hand to point downward with a gnarled forefinger.

"Nice bow," he said conversationally, indicating the flat-black takedown recurve I still held in my left hand.

"Thanks," was all I said, and then lifted an eyebrow in polite curiosity. I knew from some slight experience that some older Indians didn't like to be rushed in some matters, especially when they freely offered their help to you. It was considered rude to try and verbally hurry them along. And I got the feeling White Crow was testing me on this.

He smiled; most likely finally deciding I'd passed his little trial on manners. "I suppose you'd like me to tell you what going on with the local vamps concerning your new friend," he said.

"If you would," I asked, doing my best to keep my slight impatience out of my tone. "We've already been ambushed once by vampires because of the death warrants, and with those damned posters up everywhere, I have a bad feeling now it's not only the same group that attacked her the first time. I need to know what the word on her is."

The old Indian suddenly looked very grim.

"You may be right about that, Mr. Devil," White Crow informed me. "You're not gonna like this much better, Chief. That original pack of Rogues literally wants her blood for that vamp they lost in the first hunt. It says so right on those little flyers."

"You can read vampire script?" I interrupted.

"Sure, sure. Can't you?"

I shook my head. "I use to be able to, but not in a long time. Its changed since then and what I knew is way out of date." I reached into a pocket and took out the piece of red scrap paper, and then handed it over to the old Were.

"Gotta get yourself back to school, boss," the old man quipped as he took it. He glanced at it only slightly before looking back up at me and handing it back. "Well, I'm current in it, so I can tell you what that says. The worse news is that that pack is officially here and listed as _contractors_ for another bigger coven in town. They'd never call them what they really are, or that bring down heap big trouble. The hunter vamps work for a major coven in Seattle, headed by a big shot bloodsucker named, Martino."

"Benito Martino?" I interrupted again. My eyes blinked in surprise.

"The very same Eye-talian bloodsucker. His name's right there on the paper as the issuing coven head," White Crow confirmed with an added nod of his shaggy head. "So you heard of him?"

"Sonofabitch!" I cursed instead. Had I known his old coven was back in the area, I would have been hoping in vain all this time that it would be a different vamp named Martino running the show.

"You do know him then?" the old wolf inquired once more.

"Yeah, I know him," I said. "I wasn't aware that he was in Seattle, much less back in the United States. Last I heard he was recalled to Italy. I was hoping it might be someone else with the same last name when you mentioned it. Benito doesn't have reason to like me very much."

White Crow snorted.

"You the one that killed his sire?" he wanted to know.

"Yeah, and then some other worse things."

The old man's gray eyebrows shot upward.

"Didn't think you could get much worse than that for a vamp?"

"I was very inventive back then," I replied.

Both of his ancient eyebrows traveled upward once more, and he got a look of sympathy on his craggy features.

"Well… you're probably screwed then," he said next. "Because as the Rogue pack's patron, Martino was required to put a death warrant out on the girl. He'd have to do it anyway to keep the hunters happy and working on the sly policing his illegally claimed territory from outsider vamps.

"That means anyone in Martino's coven, all the other Rogue packs he brought in and hired, and any of his usual or recognized allies would be obligated to kill the girl on sight."

"Damn," I swore as I heard all this. "How good's your information?" I asked.

White Crow shrugged.

"Every bloodsucker within a fifty block radius of Martino's headquarters is looking for and talking about that girl now. I have a few local snitches that report what they hear back to me, and I've eased dropped on some private conversations of a few vamps that were stalking the park. Just about every coven with enough juice settled within the Seattle area is bringing in extra muscle, including undeclared Rogue packs which they all use now to regulate their territories from outside bloodsuckers."

I nodded at the bad news.

"So why the build up?" I asked.

White Crow chuckled. "You've been out of the loop too long, Chief. Haven't you heard even the rumors? They say Seattle is supposed to become the next vampire Mecca. It's the new Holy Land, and every coven here is gonna be fighting for their own piece of it. That's what I heard anyway, nothing much solid as the true reason it's so important to the ticks."

This indeed was stunning news! From what I knew about the vampire hierarchy, this was going against their laws.

"I had thought that the Volturi had forbidden any coven from staking a claim to serious territory in the western part of Washington State? Last I heard, they were only allowing covens to hold a building or residence and only the land attached to it as their own."

The old Indian pursed his thin lips and shrugged once again.

"That was always the case. Like I said, I never could find out what was so special about Seattle to the Italians. Their law seemed to be upheld… until a couple of years ago," he told me. "Until a larger coven of bloodsuckers calling themselves the _Polus Illuminatus_ showed up and began secretly grabbing up territory on the lower western sea board of the U.S., they've also been absorbing smaller covens into the group as they come north and spread slowly east."

I frowned deeply at the news.

"My Latin is a little rusty," I said, "That's something like the _Polaris Illuminati_? Something to do with the North Star?"

"Something like that, Chief," White Crown replied. "They also go by _The Divine Illuminati _down San Franco way to some of their converts sometimes. I don't think they can make up their minds on a handle. All I hear is they don't give the covens they steamroller over much choice about membership either; its join up when they roll through, or you're not going to be there when they leave. I think they've been saving Seattle for last, building up their power base and membership before going against the Volturi here."

"That makes sense," I said. "I always suspected that the Volturi had future plans for Seattle, and that's why they outlawed any covens from taking territory here. They want it for themselves."

"That's what I always figured too," White Crow agreed. "The Illuminati has been going about this the sneaky way, they leave as many coven's intact as they can, the only difference being that these covens now owe their allegiance to the them. The Volturi don't know it, and not many people do, but Martino is one of the Illuminati's advanced men. I heard that the Volturi had recalled Martino to Italy after you burned his coven's headquarters to the ground the first time."

"Martino's maker was a major player back in the day. They probably wanted to keep that coven from re-growing out of control, so they kept Martino, the official successor, close and under their thumb," I added.

"That they did," White Crow confirmed. "And rumor has it, it wasn't a pleasant stay for Martino. I heard he wasn't treated very well at all, and that for some reason his coven's standing in the hierarchy somehow suffered after what you did. Have a clue why that would be?" he asked me with a knowing eye.

"Yeah, I got a fairly good idea," I answered. "But that's not important at the moment. Go on with your story."

White Crow looked more than curious about what I knew, and when it became apparent I wasn't willing to talk about it at the moment, he went on.

"So it seems somewhere along the line, the Illuminati covertly approached Martino while he was in Volterra and made a deal with him to work for their interests. Eventually the Volturi had need of him back here, and he returned here to assume leadership over the remains of his old coven again, but this time he had money and secret support from the Illuminati. As it stands now, his foothold in Seattle has grown into one of the biggest… if not in fact _the_ biggest. The territory lines change and shift every few weeks so it's hard to keep track sometimes."

The Indian was right; I had been out of the loop for too long. This was all news to me!

"So, any solid clue as to why Seattle is such a hot vampire property to the Illuminati too?" I asked.

"Haven't a clue to that either, Chief. It must be the best-guarded bloodsucker secret in history. My guess would be for the very same reason that the Volturi want it. If you want to know for sure, you'll have to ask one of the ticks the next time you get a chance. For all I know, they just like the weather here."

"Well, that doesn't help much," I muttered. "Looks like we've landed smack dab in the middle of a loaming vampire war."

"Sure is the way I see it. That's why I'm trying to recruit help," said White Crow. "I'd just be happy if I could keep it out of my damn park! But the entire city's at stake… so I gotta look at the big picture." He idly kicked at a stone and then ground the toe of his boot into the dirt for a moment.

"Got any idea what you're going to do about helping that girl?" he asked next.

"I don't know yet," I replied. "I'll have to think this over and see what my options are."

"Wish I could help, partner," said the old man.


	42. Chapter 41

Chapter Forty-One:

I nodded my thanks, as I turned over in my mind all that I had just learned tonight. White Crow let me have a few moments to think. I almost forgot he was there for a few moments, until he suddenly stiffened and sniffed the air briskly.

"You expecting company?" he unexpectedly asked.

"No. Not the polite kind anyway," I answered. "Why?" I was inhaling as deeply as I could, trying to catch a scent of what he already had.

"Because she's here," he replied, with a hint of puzzlement.

"Who's here?"

"Your gold-eye girl," he said simply.

"Angel?"

The old wolf quickly shrugged, and I remembered I'd never told him the name we'd settled on for the vampire girl.

"The vampire girl you're with," White Crow confirmed. "She's here… and she's about to have company herself. The bad kind you were just talking about… three, maybe four of them at least, I can't be sure from here."

"Angel!" I cried, in near panic. Just then her scent drifted to me and I instinctively locked on her location. I didn't have time for the old man anymore, almost instantly I hefted by bow and took off at a full run in her direction.

"I'm coming with you!" White Crow yelled after me. "Try and not shoot me by mistake!" I heard his boots hit the ground three or four times, and then his footsteps turned into the sound of flesh hitting the ground. I heard fabric ripping and I concluded that the old man was shedding his clothing while on the run.

I'd covered less than forty yards when the huge wolf barreled passed me like a nightmare locomotive and took the lead. Four paws made White Crow faster, and his massive bulk simply smashed through foliage I would have had to leap or go around, clearing a direct path for me to follow more easily behind him.

The actual trip only took about twenty seconds, but it seemed like hours to me as I imagined all the horrible things that could be happening to Angel at that very moment.

White Crow was a blurred shape some distance ahead of me as I pushed myself harder to keep up. He burst into a clearing, and the howl he cut lose with was a war cry that told me he was upon our mutual enemy.

As soon as I cleared the trees and brush myself, I knocked an arrow to my bow.

Before me, Angel was on the ground snarling and hissing as she rolled around in combat with another form. I arrived just in time to witness White Crow slam into two Rogues that were standing close together. His big jaws were opened wider than I thought possible, and somehow after he had passed by both vamps appeared to be gone from the waist up.

I didn't have time to watch the wolf much further; another Rogue appeared to be ready to join his coven mate in the fight with Angel, waiting for the moment to ambush her from behind. In Samurai fashion, I drew the bow and released all in one smooth motion while on the run.

The arrow leaped from the bow-rest and covered the remaining distance in the blink of an eye. The shaft took the male vamp in the head, but lower than I had aimed. The arrow passed through the side of his cheek just in front of his ear, instead of into his brainpan.

It wasn't a good enough hit to shut his brain down for a moment, but the impact of the arrow set him staggering backwards a few steps away from Angel and her opponent.

By the time he recovered his balance, I had covered the remaining distance. With no time to do anything else, I gripped the lower limb of my bow and swung it at his head like a baseball bat. The upper limb and metal handle cracked with the force of the blow, leaving me holding a length of shattered composite.

The only thing I'd accomplished, besides wrecking my bow, was to rock his head backwards slightly.

Which was good enough. Decades of fighting vampires at a slight disadvantaged had taught me to take advantage of any sudden openings… like I did now.

As soon as I saw the relatively 'soft' underside of his chin, using both hands, I rammed the broken bow limb upward as hard as I was able. Luckily, my half-vampire strength was just enough to stab the jagged piece of composite through his marble-like skin, up through his mouth, and into his brain… like I had wanted the arrow to go in the first place.

The vamp stiffened, and then began to shake like he was being slowly electrocuted, which told me my makeshift spear had not penetrated very far into the vamp's brain, so I dared not let go.

I had no choice but to hold him there while I waited for the slight damage to take effect, and to make sure his control center finally went into shut down.

Crazily, I almost laughed out loud while I waited through the agonizing long seconds, because the shaft sticking plainly out both sides of his lower skull reminded me of the old Steve Martin comedy routine where the comedian wore that fake arrow through his head.

The Rogue finally stopped twitching, and I felt it was safe enough to let go of the busted bow limb. Somewhere along the way my fangs and claws had come out once more, and as soon as I was able I reached up and taking the Rogue's head in my hands, I twisted it off his neck with several turns and a sharp jerk. My panic and worry over Angel added so much to my strength that I had actually bent the titanium shaft of the arrow completely around the vamp's skull at the same time.

Before I could dropped the head and get to Angel, I heard a bright snapped, followed by a wet ripping sound coming from the direction I knew Angel was in. I let the head fall and spun around, fearing I'd see the worst.

The sight that greeted me was something else entirely. Both vampires were still in the dirt, but now on their knees facing each other.

Angel knelt in front of a female vampire, who had a huge hole in the middle of her chest. In Angel's small talon of a hand she held the dead gray flesh of a heart. She held the organ upward suddenly in her bloody fist and screamed to the heavens in victory.

The Rogue on her knees before Angel appeared to be in shock, and gasping for air like a fish out of water. I almost growled a warning to Angel that she hadn't in fact finished her opponent off, and that she was merely in shock from having an organ she really didn't need, abruptly ripped out of her chest.

I need not have worried on that account, because within a few seconds Angel slammed the heart back into its owner's opened mouth.

My vampire girl shrieked once again, and then leaped upward on her attacker, locking her legs around the Rogue's chest. Angel then wrapped her arms around the other vampire's head, almost in the fashion of a bear hug.

I knew what was going to occur before it happened.

Angel tense up and then yanked upward, using her strong legs to aid in driving the motion.

The female Rogue's head became dislocated from her body, followed by a good foot of spinal cord along with it.

The body tumbled over and Angel rolled with it, tossing away the head and coming to her feet in the combat crouch typical to vampires. It was then that I saw the second body with the upper portion of its skull, just above where the ears would have been, torn away and lying there close to where she had been fighting the female Rogue.

Apparently Angel had killed another of her attackers before we arrived.

I quickly scanned the area, and saw no other person standing on the field of battle besides Angel and I. It looked like we had gotten all the Rogues in the party… for now.

"Angel," I called lowly.

At the sound of my voice, the girl spun around and hissed a challenge at me. She bared her teeth and clenched her taloned fingers, ready to fight once more.

"Its me," I said, when I realized she hadn't noticed yet that I'd arrived.

Her eyes had turned pitch black in battle lust, but she did ease her posture a bit as she processed the information through her animal instinct that I was an ally.

"Kage?" she asked in a horse sounding voice. She then started to quickly look around to see if there were anymore of her enemies left. Undoubtedly she had been aware that there had been more attackers than just the two she killed.

"Yeah," I said. "It looks like they're gone, we've beaten them."

Her clothing was torn and ragged, marked now by dirt and grass stains. And blood, lots of blood… and I hoped that most of it wasn't hers. I wanted nothing more than to rush over and check her, but I knew better than to touch her at that moment.

Not until _she_ decided she could calm down. Her vampire survival instincts were in overdrive, and she might lash out first without thinking.

I took an apprehensive moment to glance Angel over from where I stood. Her face and arms were visibly scratched up, and a nasty bruise on her left cheek looked as if it was already starting to heal.

Suddenly her eyes grew large, and I had that creeping intuition that something wasn't right.

Practitioners of Ninjutsu train to develop a state of mind called, Mushu… or 'no mind'. It allows us to become sensitive to the intent of others, even if we can't see them. In fact, demonstrating a heighten sense of Mushu was a requirement in passing the test for your one of your black belt levels. You either passed it, or got clunked on the back of your head with a blunt metal sword when one of your instructors abruptly decided it was time to come up behind you while you were mediating and administer the test.

Mushu was back on the job, or perhaps it was I was paying more attention to it now that the blonde giant had nearly punched my clock for the last time less than half and hour ago, but it was telling me someone or something meant me harm. So I wasn't too surprise when I felt the hand about to settle on my shoulder from the rear.

With strange ease, I intercepted the limb and applied a clockwise twist as I dropped my weight lower than I sense the presence behind me to be. Once the arm torqued all the way out, I pulled and tucked the hand in closer to me and threw myself into a forward roll that actually sent my body traveling up along the arm I was holding.

The Rogue hit the ground; face first in front of me, just as my legs tumble out of the roll to straddle his arm. Bones snapped as my weight landed on the limb and my momentum carried me further to rock back up onto my feet again. I followed through with the forward motion and didn't stop until both my knees slammed into the vamp's back and shoulders to pin him to the ground.

I reached over my shoulder and drew the Banshee just as I hit, using both hands I spiked the blade through the middle of the Rogue's spine. I pushed upward with my feet, using their power to free the short sword-like weapon. As soon as it was clear, I immediately raked the bush knife across the back of the vampire's neck to severe the head.

It all happened in the blink of an eye, and appeared to be completed in just one smooth motion. Such was the art of the Japanese assassin. It was swift, deadly, and final.

I spun back toward Angel, after assuring myself that there were no other vampires left standing in the clearing with us. She was staring at me with wide eyes, but I immediately went back up trying to assess her condition.

I couldn't visually inspect her further for injuries very long, as she suddenly rushed forward into my arms to hug me.

"What are you doing here?" I asked after she was safe in my armored embrace.

"I came to help," she told me. "I couldn't let you do this by yourself. I'm not going to sit home safe while you risk everything for me. I'm not gonna do it!"

Despite the situation, part of me was thrilled with the natural way she called my house, _home_. As if she belonged there with me, and always would be from now on. Just as suddenly and a bit selfishly, I had another dreadful thought that damped that elation.

"You didn't trash the Vette getting here, did you?" I asked breathlessly.

Angel at first shook her head, and I was ashamed to feel relieved on that account.

"I called a cab to get here. I wanted to be inconspicuous as possible, but they jumped me almost as soon as I entered the park," she went on to explain.

The girl made me proud, despite the panic over her life she had just put me through. She had taken on seven Rogues at the onset of the fight, and basically killed two of them without help.

"They thought they had me because I was outnumbered. But I wasn't afraid of them and I fought," she went on to explain.

"Yes. Yes, you did. But they're gone now," I reminded her when I felt her shiver against me despite her courageous words.

"It was like they couldn't touch me… for the most part," she went on to say. Almost like I knew when to move, just before they could come close. It was strange."

"Born fighter," I tried to jest. "Like to brawl… and just like _me_, not smart enough to know when to be afraid." She chuckled slightly against my chest, and it felt good to feel her there, even through armor.

I was sure that during the fight Angel had known no fear, as she seemed to have an indomitable spirit for someone of such petite stature. It was only when it was over and after the fact that she'd allow the true consequences to set in on her.

"But I wish you would have stayed home like I asked you too. It's a lot easier for me to do what I have to if I'm not worrying about you," I added. I wasn't about to tell her that I nearly messed up badly that night myself. I wasn't as much concerned about my own welfare, as I was hers. If Angel had been hurt, or worse yet, lost to me… I don't know what I would have done.

"You think it's easy for me sitting around and worrying about _you_?" she snapped lightly in retort, picking her head up to glare at me. "I'm not doing it again, so don't you ever ask me too."

She was stubborn, but I already knew that. I was just about to debate the matter with her a bit further, when she suddenly swooned and most of her weight came into my arms.

"What's wrong?" I demanded to know in new alarm. A split second later I had my answer as I felt cool blood running through my fingers from where my right hand had automatically reached around her slim body to hold her up. My fingers could feel the large gash in her lower left back, just above her hip.

"You're wounded!" I exclaimed, as Angel got her feet under her again.

"It's nothing," she insisted. "One of them got in behind me during the fight for a second, and sliced my side opened a little bit with their fingers. It's healing, so I'll be all right in a little while. No need to worry."

"Like hell, Angel! It shouldn't still be this bad!" I countered after I turned her a bit to get a better look, there was still way too much blood for the minor wound she was claiming. "We're getting you out of here right now."

I tried to pick her up, but Angel pushed me off, and I was surprise by the amount of force she could still muster into the shove despite being hurt.

"We can't just yet," she said obstinately. "We have to burn the bodies before they mend. Otherwise they'll be back at us again some other time, and we'll… Kage! Look out!" she suddenly shouted.

She was looking over my shoulder at something behind me, and this time Mushu hadn't warned me of any danger.

I turned, automatically reaching for the Banshee over my shoulder again, as she dropped back into a defensive stance. I absently noted that Angel wasn't moving as smoothly as she normally did, and that pretty much confirmed for me that she was hurt much worse than she was letting on.

I set myself firmly between her and the threat, half drawing the Banshee, expecting to see more Rogues heading our way. But instead of vampires, I only saw White Crow as he poked his massive wolf head out of the shadows and trotted into the clearing with us.

In my worry over Angel, I had forgotten about my strange new ally.

Angel hissed a warning at the huge wolf, showing her perfect teeth.

"Its okay!" I told her, spinning back, while grabbing her arm before she could charge the big Were. "He's a friend, and he helped save you," I continued. It was then that I also realized I hadn't seen the two Rogues that White Crow had taken out. Now… not even the lower halves of their bodies were present on the ground anywhere I could see.

I almost shuttered again to think of what the wolf had done with them, and I again considered I was probably better off not knowing. Three vampire Rogues in one night and one of them that huge blonde? That wolf had to have a mammoth appetite I found myself thinking regardless.

The wolf ignored Angel for the moment and whined to get my attention.

"Are you sure?" Angel asked, leaning a bit more heavily on me. She still regarded the wolf suspiciously however.

"Yeah, I'm sure. We met tonight and it's a long story that I'll tell you later."

White Crow whined again more urgently, and danced about on his paws a bit.

"This seems familiar somehow," she said muddled. "But I think he's trying to tell you something."

The wolf huffed once and dipped his nose in a wolf nod.

I looked at the Indian turned wolf and asked, "Okay, what?"

The Were turned in a new direction, make a big production out of sniffing the air before baring his frightening teeth and growling low.

It wasn't hard to figure out what that was Wolf-talk for.

"Oh no," I said. "More Rogues on the way?"

White Crow huffed once again and dipped his snout.

"Dammit! How big is this coven? How many?" I then asked, to which White Crow cocked his furry head at the absurdity that I expected him to speak an answer. "A lot?" I ventured.

Again another wolf huff in response.

I grabbed Angel's hand.

"Forget the bodies, we gotta go!" I told her. Bleeding as she was, the Rogues were going to home right in on her trail. We had to run – now! "She's wounded, and those bastards will zero in right on her scent," I explained needlessly to White Crow. "Which way is the best one to take out of here?" I asked next.

White Crow made one quick circle, and then pointed his nose back in the direction we had come from.

"Come on, let's go," I told the pair of them, vampire and wolf. Angel started to follow – not that I gave her much choice with the hold I had on her hand, but White Crow stood his ground and gave me a short bark. I turned, and as soon as I did he began shaking his great shaggy head.

"What do you mean?" I inquired, briefly wondering if there was some other danger we weren't aware of yet in the direction we were to go?

The wolf merely turned back in the direction he said the Rogues were coming from and growled low once again. He suddenly looked back at Angel and me. His eyes settle on the girl and he gave a brief sympathetic whimper for her condition, and for the fact he knew her wounded state would give our escape route away. His meaning was perfectly clear to me.

"You can't be serious," I asked. "We need to clear out while we have a head start! We run away and live to fight another day."

He gave us what could only be a canine smile in reply. He then started to bob his snout urgently toward the route he said we should go. He then turned back in the direction of the oncoming pack of Rogues and utter what I could only assume was a wolf-chuckle.

"You're going to go meet them? To distract them?" I continued instead of wasting more time trying to debate.

I got another inpatient huff in return.

"Is that wise if there are so many of them?"

The wolf 'grinned' at me again, and this time the huff I got had a _definite_ hint of amusement to it.

"I know… it's _your_ park," I finished. This time I got a happy yip and a nose dip for my trouble. "Crazy old Indian! I still have more questions I need answers too," I told him. "How do I find you again?"

The big wolf cocked his head first one way, then the other way, his soft brownish gold eyes holding mine.

That message was pretty clear too.

"You'll find us," I concluded.

White Crow snapped his jaws shut and nodded his massive head once… and I had my answer.

"Okay, if I can't talk you out of it, I'll just wish you good luck then," I reluctantly said. Angel was hurt and I didn't have time to argue with the mad old wolf. The Indian turned to go, and I called out one last time.

"White Crow!" and when he turned to look at me over his shoulder, I added, "Thank you for what you've done tonight. All of it."

The wolf huffed one last time before bounding off into the foliage and becoming lost to even my sight. I had the sudden feeling that it was the Rogues who were in big trouble, not the big Were.

I turned to find Angel watching me, the look on her face not alarmed at all. As if having a conversation with a monster wolf was the most common thing in the world to her.

"You meet the strangest people," she did say with a weak smile.

"And they just keep getting stranger all the time," I agreed. "Let's move, we got a lot of ground to travel and we need to get you home so I can take care of you," I told her as I took her hand again.


	43. Chapter 42

Chapter Forty-Two:

As much as I wanted to, I didn't dare stop anywhere along the way to see to Angel's wounds, not while we were still in the park, and the rapid pace I set took more out of her than even I had thought it would.

We came out of Frink Park nearly at the same point I had entered, and by that time I was basically carrying her.

The Ford was parked on a near-by side street, under a street lamp that I had purposely busted out with a thrown stone to cut down on the chance of being seen by unwanted human eyes. Tonight wasn't the first time I'd vandalized public property when I needed to, and I'm sure it wasn't going to be my last.

It turned out to have been a wise precaution, as the sight of a man approaching middle age, dressed in black riot armor, and not to mention armed to the teeth, all while carrying a nearly unconscious teenage girl would have given most people some dire concerns in even the worst of neighborhoods.

"I'm sorry," Angel was now saying weakly. "I just wanted to help… didn't mean for this to happen."

I told her it was all right, and promised everything was going to be fine. Even as I spoke the reassuring words I hoped that I wasn't lying to her.

I got Angel into the passenger side of the SUV and threw my leather coat over her to keep her warm, even though for a vampire the gesture was probably pointless. I paused further only long enough to divest myself of enough gear so I could drive the vehicle.

I drove out of the area as quickly as possible without attracting attention. I already had one vampire funeral pyre burning in the park that was going to be noticed sooner or later.

I headed west along South Jackson Street before turning south down 23rd Avenue, putting a few miles between the parks and us before feeling it was safe to pull into a well-lit strip mall with a twenty-four hour diner.

Angel didn't look good, her head rolled limply on the headrest and her eyes fluttered on the verge of closing. I feared that my making her high tail it out of the park would set her recovery back further… or worse yet, damage her chances at a full recovery even more!

I saw she was on the brink of blacking out, which was never a good sign for any vampire. I rolled her over slightly toward me so I could examine her wound more closely. It was healing, and for the moment, not as bad as I had expected, but it still should have been further along than it was.

I swore silently to myself as I gently eased her back into the passenger seat again. It was as I initially feared; the old medical text warned that her healing abilities may be compromised until she had fully recovered after such a traumatic head injury, something to do with a chemical imbalance where the brain sets repairs to itself as priority over anything else. The terminology Eleazar used was beyond me of course, but I managed to get the bare gist of what he was implying in his writings.

Angel needed more blood to counter-act the damage she'd taken, and I didn't want to wait the twenty-plus more minutes it would take for us to get home to her supply. The vampire medical transcript I had read also said that if she slipped beyond a certain point in her current condition, there would be no coming back no matter how much human blood was forced into her later. The only relief from that limbo for her in that case would be the final death!

I was sure she wouldn't make it if we waited to get home.

I removed the brace guard from my left forearm, and yanked up the sleeve of the black shirt I was wearing under my armor. I didn't even bother trying to use one of the many knives I had on me. For the sake of expediency, I simply tore into my wrist with my fangs.

Once I had enough blood flowing, I eased Angel's head up and brought the ragged gouge in my wrist to her now pale lips.

"Here… drink!" I urged, trying to get through her daze.

For a moment nothing happened, and I began to fear I'd lost her to that unnatural sleep. The manuscript I'd read held far too many warnings, and case examples on the weakness of the patients in Angel's situation. In her condition, it was possible she'd easily slip over into that borderland of death for vampires, where only burning held any sure final release for the minds trapped inside useless bodies as hard as stone.

Recovery from extreme damage for healthy vampires, in the best cases, came only from fresh human blood… a lot of it. I was only half-human at best, and in fact maybe not even that much after all. I wasn't sure if using my own blood I'd be able to bring her back from that twilight plane if she fell into it, at least long enough to get her to a source of human blood… and I was sure she wouldn't want to be saved at the sacrifice of a human life anyway.

"Dammit, Angel! Drink!" I demanded again in a hard voice. I forced my wrist harder against her mouth.

Then her lips finally began to move, feebly at first, and then eventually they sealed tight to my wrist. I felt hope rising, if I could just get enough in to hold her here, perhaps the cattle and human mixture at home would bring her the rest of the way back?

She started to gradually take more and more from me, until I felt her teeth graze my skin in her yearning.

"Easy!" I reminded her in a hiss.

That seemed to bring her around from her stupor, as suddenly her eyes snapped open wider, and I saw that they were nearly black, but more focused now.

She glanced up at me, and I could see worry now in her gaze, as she probably wasn't really aware of how long she'd actually been feeding from me. Seeing I wasn't making a move to stop her, she drew off me a few more times knowing she needed it. I was glad to see some color finally return to her lips at least.

A moment later she forced herself to stop.

She moaned slightly as she pushed my arm away on her own, but she followed up by leaning over and resting her head against my shoulder in a wary manner.

"Thank you," she murmured a moment later. "I feel stronger now… but a bit tired. I'll be fine. Take me home now please."

"Are you sure?" I asked. I had taken the opportunity to rip off my shirtsleeve and then used it to bind the slowly healing tear in my wrist.

"Yeah. But that's not the way I wanted to taste your blood again," she told me in a weak voice.

I found that I was relieved that she was actually trying to inject some vampire humor into the situation. That gave me hope that perhaps she'd suffer no long lasting ill effects from her wound after all, and what I had given her had been enough to hold.

I don't know what I would have done if something untoward had happened to her tonight. I just couldn't bear to think upon it.

"I know," I answered, wearing a tight smile of my own. "But beggars can't be choosers."


	44. Chapter 43

Chapter Forty-Three:

"_**War, Children, it's just a shot away…"**_

A few hours later, I found myself watching Angel's still form from the doorway of my home's master bedroom. At the moment she reminded me too much of a fragile doll, as she lay curled up on my bed, her short hair still damp from the quick shower she insisted on taking despite her obvious fatigue.

She was deep in that mysterious healing sleep once again. I wasn't too pleased to see her succumbed to that eerie slumber almost instantly, only just barely making it to the bed under her own power. She went unconscious within seconds of her head touching the pillow, as if someone had flicked a switch. I had been hopeful with her progress because in the last few days those periods of unconsciousness had been taking longer and longer to claim her. She had been able to exercise some control over them, and had enjoyed curling up next me and chatting for a while before allowing herself to slowly drift under when she chose to for the most part.

By the time we had gotten home, I was surprised to see that my small blood donation had helped heal the worrisome deep wound in her side to just a long pink scar. If all went well, it should be completely gone by morning.

Tonight's occurrence also indicated to me that even though Angel had seemed to be progressing well in her recovery, she was still much too weak to risk anymore physical injuries like this… at least until her overtaxed healing abilities had returned to full strength.

That was also the reason I insisted without relenting that she get almost a full mug of cattle's blood into her before going to bed, despite her griping protests that she was simply too exhausted to bother and just wanted to lie down after her shower.

Watching her struggle to remain awake long enough to bathe and then have a quick forced meal, swiftly reminded me of how Angel's condition had been those first few days here after the attack.

I felt a shiver down to my bones, as I couldn't help but compare how much her slumber resembled death, especially after the events of several hours ago. Tonight had been closer to that final sleep for her than I wanted to let myself think about.

At least a little while ago Angel had slipped into this unconscious state a bit closer toward normal for her, and not in that life-fading manner she had started to fall into on the way back here, from serious vampire inflicted wounds and blood loss. However, I was still more than a little troubled with the way this bout came to her, because she really had been doing so well with the treatments we concocted prior to this evening. And I was hoping to see signs of the mixture boosting her energy after she finished the mug I made her drink… but to no avail, she insisted she still felt that familiar tiredness and wanted to give in to it.

I also noted in the Explorer that Angel had been claiming to be abnormally tired as we continued on our way home after leaving the small strip mall, but she repeatedly assured me that she was positive the new feeling was the normal healing sleep that plagued her, and not anything caused by her injuries.

But given tonight's stressful events and her serious wounds… I suppose common sense should dictate that a slight setback should have been reasonably expected.

I still didn't like it.

My jaw tightened as I recalled Angel telling me at the beginning of her stay here that she suspected she might be dreaming during these odd sleeps, but that she really wasn't all that certain, as she could remember no firm images the next day… only very vague impressions that there might have been something.

We were now somewhat sure the vampire girl sometimes had strange nightmares in her unnatural slumber.

The 'Burning Star dream' of only a few nights ago was still fresh in my mind. And in retrospect it did seem a dark harbinger of our attack near the restaurant.

"_We are going to die,"_ Angel had predicted in that strange state, and I trembled slightly, wondering if it meant that sooner or later the Rogues were going the catch the upper hand at some point in the future and kill us?

Combining this evening's somewhat botched events with the ambush on our way home from our evening out, and I wouldn't be surprised at all if Angel suffered a few more nightmares, and made several more doomsday proclamations in her sleep… even though I prayed for both our shakes she didn't.

Part of me also couldn't help but think – with mounting dread – that these strange dream spells of hers might actually be an indication that something was serious wrong with Angel still, something to do with her prior head injury, and that the poor girl might never truly be well ever again.

Tonight's shoddily planned activities had yielded only a few of the answers we needed in a roundabout way, mostly thanks to White Crow willingness to share what he knew. But the cost in obtaining these few bits of information had almost been much too high.

I was now thinking that attempting to work in this low-profile manner, especially against vampires, was going to be nearly impossible task. Taking on vampires wasn't work for a scalpel… it required a hammer, and a big one at that! But I had promised Angel I would do my best to try and be low-key. The girl had been adamant that whatever we do, we do as quickly and quietly as possible so as to attract as little attention as necessary. I suppose in a way, she had the right idea. We already had one Rogue coven out for her blood – literally. So I can imagine she didn't relish adding more groups to that list.

Subtlety suffered a major drawback in how I use to do things, I never had to care how many covens I pissed off because the entire plan had been to kill them all. I began to consider maybe my metaphorical hammer did need to be a touch smaller in this instance?

Regardless, I was stuck for the moment with my current method of operation, if for anything to keep my word to Angel.

Then again… I was never one for letting a small thing like a promise keep me from getting a job done. But damn it, I'd never before made a promise to anyone who meant as much to me as Angel does.

Perhaps, I shouldn't play my own devil's advocate in this situation? As I just seem to be mudding the mental waters.

One thing was for sure, that rock and the hard place were starting to squeeze me awfully tight.

Subtleties rarely worked on vamps, being most of them were arrogant in some fashion. This I found to be an established fact long ago. The best thing was to hit them hard, let them know they've been hit, and let them know you plan on hitting them again if they continue to tick you off.

I was going to have to come up with another more efficient way to accomplish what needed to be done, and keep _everyone_ happy for as long as possible while doing it.

I didn't hold out much hope for that prospect happening, no matter how hard I tried to tread lightly. So I did the next best thing, which was something I was good at.

I started making back-up plans for when everything turn to shit.

There would be no stretching out tonight with the girl I had un-expectantly grown to love, as much as I really just wanted to forget everything that haunted us and crawl into bed next to her at this very moment. I wanted nothing more then to pull her still body closer to me and hold her in my arms. She probably wouldn't know I was there until she awoke, but I would know she was safe.

Yeah, I wanted to forget everything for a while and hide, but I had very grave matters to think over for the next few hours.

If anyone were to ask me, I would say that worse part of this evening's royal screw-up was I had given the Angel my word that everything would be fine. I had promised to do my best to protect her, and tonight I might just as well have been taken totally unprepared for how successful all my planning had turned out.

I reviewed in my mind where I went off beam, and eventually realized that in the past, only I suffered by my fly-by-night actions if anything went wrong. Tonight's events had pounded into me that I couldn't afford to work that way any longer, not with Angel counting on me to do the correct thing the first time.

And as a result doing things the old way, I almost failed miserably at keeping that promise to her as a consequence.

I wasn't use to being important to someone else. That silly, stubborn, girl had come looking for me tonight… and damn but I loved her for it. But that much I should have foreseen would happen had I exercised any common sense, given how well I had grown to know her willful nature.

There was simply no way Angel would let herself be left behind no matter what I said, no matter what I argued or debated with her, and no matter what I demanded she do or promise me.

I had been stupid to believe I could bend her will in the slightest of ways. With her, apparently it was going to be an equal partnership… or nothing!

I was going to have to plan my moves better, and perhaps possibly even keep certain aspects of what I meant to do from her if necessary… as much as that broke the promise about lying to her I had recently made.

If it meant keeping her as safe as possible while I did the incredibly stupid thing by sticking my hand into a hornet's nest, I supposed I could live with that. What I didn't think I could live with was another Stephanie, I honestly believe now that would destroy me.

I hoped Angel could eventually forgive me if it came down to further required deceit on my part.

If it had not been for sheer luck, and her own natural skill at killing two of the vamps while holding the others off for a few moments, and that crazy old shape-shifter stepping in when he had… the Rogues would have overwhelmed and taken Angel, and then killed her eventually despite my arrival.

There would have been no way without help that I could have saved her tonight… even if I was at the scene within two seconds of her first being attacked. Hell… I'd almost gotten myself killed tonight. If that would have happened, Angel would have died tonight too when she came looking for me.

I had made some grand noises in the beginning about going on the offense, taking the fight to the enemy, but it had all amounted to nothing so far.

What I was doing I doubted was going to work very well, especially with limits placed on how nasty I could play… I was almost sure of it. It just wasn't going to be enough to get us all the way out of this.

I needed to start hedging my bets, or better yet - cheating… just like I had in the old days. That would be the first smart thing I've done!

I left my position at the doorway without really thinking about it, drawn to Angel's side like a magnet to steel; I went to sit on the edge of the bed next to her. As my weight settled onto the mattress I was slightly disappointed that she didn't notice me, didn't automatically roll in my direction to find me like she had done lately. And of course, she didn't even stir toward waking.

She was under deep, gone somewhere in her unconsciousness that I could only wonder about. Sleeping like the dead, like the vampires of myth and campy old movies.

Angel had not been this deathly still since her first couple of days here… and I didn't like it because I saw it for the set back in her health that I feared it was.

I gently moved a lock of her wild spiked hair aside so I could better see her pretty face. I wonder if she knew how I saw her, about how much she lit that darkest in my soul that I had forgotten was there. She was so much like what I imagined a real Angel would be.

And tonight, I had almost lost her… just like I had once lost someone else who had met the world to me.

"_Bumbling old fool that I am,"_ I suddenly cursed myself as I looked at her.

I had indeed been overconfident, thinking I could just pick up where I left of half a century ago, and way out of practice… and just plain brainless on top of all that. I should have done my homework… researched my opponent first. Learned everything I could about them before acting. I knew better!

The old Were had said there was a battle going on for control of the streets of Seattle among the vampire legions, something way beyond the normal rules that had formally governed the undead in Seattle. This was a new game, one whose rules I had not a clue too… not yet.

Coven was going against coven in a grab for new territory, in a mockery of Volturi law, and it was going on unnoticed right under my very nose to boot. Had I bothered to check first, I would have known some of these competing groups were bringing in outside help, like the gangs of Rogues, to enforce and secure what they were grabbing up for themselves.

This was all in the way of new information that I should have had right from the start, and I had to find a way to start using it to our advantage now.

It was generally a all out race to see who could swell their numbers the fastest and better their odds of winning the city and holding it as a prize, all without the Volturi finding out about it too soon… and perhaps with this new group calling themselves the 'Divine Illuminati' pulling all the players' strings from somewhere behind the scenes.

And a Rogue coven gunning for Angel out in plain view, what was I to do about that?

Vampires as a rule were not known for their ability to forgive trespasses, and from what little I knew about Rogues, they were much worse in that regard.

After the life I've led, I know that racial quirk all to well. And I should understand it because I suffered from the very same defect myself to some degree, being a half-blood after all.

I fought an un-winnable war for almost fifty years because of it!

But for Rogues to be so bold as to ask their patron to publish a public death warrant? They might as well just take a newspaper ad announcing they were in the area to the other covens. The game had indeed changed drastically. I supposed the Hunters could afford to be so bold now, they had been clandestinely asked to be here and providing their services. It was more than obvious that in this case the Rogues were free to do as they pleased without worry of the other covens banding together to kill them… if they were more or less under the protection of a large major coven in the area.

The Death Warrant complicated things greatly. I gave up calculating the odds against Angel and I with the notice in effect, and just moved our chances of surviving this over onto the side of the scale marked "_impossible"._

I briefly reviewed and considered what solid facts I did know about our dire situation. These mercenary Rogue gangs had been given license by their _sponsoring_ covens to kill any non-allied vampires they came across in their sponsor's claimed territory. My Japanese-trained strategic mindset almost admired the beauty of the arrangement; it would be the perfect win-win bargain for both parties. It gave the host coven exactly what they wanted – their boarders policed from intruders, and it gave the Hunters the perfect hunting ground for their favorite big game… other vampires.

And again, all against Volturi laws. If anything, the simple case of all this being _illegal_ might be the hammer I needed. I was willing to bet, or rather I had no choice but to bet, that the Volturi weren't too well aware of what was going on in Seattle yet.

I just needed to find the right nail to hit on the head with said hammer now.

Until I had more solid facts, it was just a working theory for now. I wasn't going to go off half-cocked again, despite what White Crow had said. All successful battles were waged and won on good solid intelligence. That basic lesson I wasn't about to forget again.

What I knew for certain was that Angel had the good luck, or the bad luck if you see it that way, of surviving the Hunters initial attack upon her, and I assume her coven. That alone might have marked her for their interest.

The additional drawback to the girl's survival and the catalyst to our current problem was that one of the Rogue pack members had died the final death as a result of her escape, which I aided in, not to mention the fact that I was the one to actually kill the Rogue.

That certainly marked her for retribution by the surviving coven members.

And now against all odds Angel had survived, just barely, a total of three attacks by the Rogues, or their agents on account of the warrants. That moved the circumstances up into the realm of the truly personal affront now for her enemies.

Yeah… she was not going to be very popular with them for sure.

So now in revenge for not allowing herself to be quietly murdered and killing one of their own, the Rogues marked Angel for death, and by covenant it appears she was to also be marked by the coven that had brought the vamp hunters into Seattle as allies.

It was in a strange concept, the vampire equivalent of 'America's Most Wanted'.

If the Wolf was right, my old playmate Benito Martino had issued an obligatory Death Warrant for Angel, as part of his guaranteed cover of protection that was given to all his coven members and extended to his associates that severed him as the coven's master.

Meaning not only were the Rogues hunting her, but that any member or ally of Martino's coven was obligated to take vengeance on Martino's and his employee's behalf if they should happen to run across Angel.

In essence, Angel was being tossed to these mangy curs as nothing but an employee benefit, just something to keep the peons from griping to management and in line. Just an "Atta-boy!" for doing a good job for the company.

Nothing like running your vampire coven like a big business… and hell, did that really just start to annoy me!

Well… at least now I was certain that Martino might be the nail whose head I needed to bash with my new spiffy Volturi-made hammer.

I hissed lowly to myself, feeling my fangs itch, but I knew at this point anger would only be counter-productive. I quickly ran through one of the mental exercises I'd mastered in Japan to curb my partial vampire nature. I needed a Zen form of calm to carefully plan out my next actions.

I pondered the consequences of all I have thought of, and let it all sink in as it may.

Once I had all my bloodsucking ducks in a row, then I could start efficiently sniping at their little feathered asses.

The way Angel and I had considered trying to go about things looked as if it simply wasn't going to be viable now that I had organized more about what I knew was going on. Things in Seattle were happening on a much more massive scope than we had imagined, and I knew in that was an advantage I could use. Somebody important somewhere, had a serious investment in what was taking place in Seattle, and I'm sure they would consider that investment not worth risking over revenge on one little vampire girl. And I was almost willing to bet the house that somebody with the huge investment was going to turn out to be Benito Martino.

I already believed after some deep deliberation that going on a wide scale covert offensive wasn't going to cut it. The battlefield would be too large and the results thinly ineffective.

I almost smiled as I rapidly realized what was actually required, was still in fact, a '_in your face'_ approach. Which played exactly to my strengths for a change.

If I picked my targets sparingly and very selectively, I figure I just might get away with it… and not end up alerting the entire vampire community that Angel and I were still around.

My back-up plan to this new course of action was fantastically simple. If it all tanked… go in and kill everything that wasn't us!

If my currently forming idea fizzled, we would be beyond the point were we could afford to keep walking a fine line. I'd been trying to do that all this time… and it could only take us so far.

I had to be ready to pick my fights, make a stand, and damn the consequences if it came down to it.

I also had this half-baked idea that if worse came to worse, that my sudden bloody reappearance on the scene raising hell with the Illuminati would soon draw the Volturi's attention and involvement. If I could get those two powers immersed into conflict that would make every other vampire in the world forget about Angel. If they were both busy hunting each other, and me, then Angel hopefully could slip away into obscurity and out of mind.

I already knew at this point that there was a good possibility I wasn't going to be able to keep my word to up-hold that truce I made with a trio of half-crazy vampires half a century ago. Not and protect this girl who'd come to mean so much to me from her enemies at the same time.

No, if I really wanted to keep Angel safe I could no longer limit my options to these half-measures if this last plan didn't work, just to keep a promise I made decades ago.

My final alternative if it all failed… would be to get ready to go to war again… and be willing to notch it up to another full-out war if it became necessary.

This last course of action of course ran afoul of the vow I made 50-years ago to _not_ be at war with vampires, as I mentioned. But for all I really knew those three vampires I made the promise to could be long dead by now. All of them fallen to the Volturi's duplicities.

Or just as easily they could today be three vampires in positions of great power that I wouldn't want to really piss off. What I knew about the Volturi's current status wouldn't fill a little yellow post-it note at the moment. I would probably be wise to also see about rectifying that deficiency as soon as possible, while I'm going about catching up on the Rogue and Illuminati information.

I also had to consider perhaps a bigger moral picture here, and that sometimes occasions will arise where keeping your word and allowing an innocent to come to harm might be the worse thing a person… human, vampire, or half-vampire, could morally or honorably do. If there is a god… he, she, or it knows my books could stand a little balancing toward the _good_ column for a change.

Not that god has ever been much of help in my life. All god ever did for me was turn a blind eye when I needed god the most.

I had absolutely no doubt as she now was; Angel was an innocent… regardless of who she might have been before losing her memory, or what she might have done in the past.

Until that horse named "Full Recovery" crossed the finish line… if it ever did, Angel had a clean slate as far as I was concerned, just as if she'd been a newborn human child.

I glanced back at the sleeping vampire girl as I asked myself all the serious questions that needed to be asked one last time to be sure.

Do I really want to do this? Is it going to be worth it, because once I set on that path there would be no going back?

One look at Angel's sleeping face, and I knew it was worth everything I had, made, or gotten for myself over the last fifty years… without the slightest of qualms.

I had fallen hopelessly in love with this girl. Because of her I saw things once more in life I never thought I would see or feel ever again. I would do anything to see her safe again… even if I had to die to do it. And if afterwards, god decided to torment me by giving me a thousand more chances to do it all over again, I would die a thousand more times without pause.

I had not felt this way about anyone since Stephanie. I had not felt truly connected to another living creature until Angel stumbled into my life. Until her, I had not realized how dead I had become inside.

And I was going to be damned to hell this time if I was going to let other vampires take Angel from me the way they had taken my dear Stephanie.

No. Not this time… not while I still drew a single breath.

Wars between nations had started over lesser causes and reasons. I felt positive that this time I was justified without a doubt in taking up arms. And this time, I knew exactly who the enemy was, and that they had earned whatever was coming their way.

If it was all to come to open warfare again… then so be it. Let there be blood… theirs or mine!

I couldn't help but lean down, and place my lips against her cool temple for a moment. I closed my eyes and deeply inhaled her scent… realizing again what a light she had become for me.

I made another silent vow to her, to truly fix this for her or to die with her trying to the very end.

My decisions made, and new plans beginning to take further shape, I left the bedroom, quietly closing the door behind me out of pure human habit.

I went immediately to the attached garage, and the separate small workshop that I normally just puttered around in. Inside the workspace, I pulled off a number of tarps and uncovered the tools I would need to commence this trek. My small forge and anvils, also the array of hammers and tongs I would also need to start.

If I were to raise a version of my former self from the ashes of the dead, I would need fire… and steel!

During my period in Japan, learning how to kill things both human and vampire, I also picked up the art of the forge. It was a skilled meant to augment my training in Bunjinkan – or ninjutsu as it's more commonly referred to here in the states by non-practicers of the art.

It was logically important to have the skill and know-how to make your own weapons when you needed to, as you might not always be able to move from place to place with what you required, especially if you were traveling undercover.

After setting the fire with some of my precious store of special coal, I left the forge to heat and went again into my basement locker. There I found within one of the many cases, one of my few remaining half-forged billets.

I weighed the seventy-plus year-old metal block in my hand, and then the veracity of it hit me for real. Here was a physical symbol of the change I was contemplating. Once I took the next step I planned on, there would truly be no going back for me.

The moment of reflection passed, and then I removed the oiled cloth covering the hunk of steel and closely inspected it, pleased when I found not a single speck of rust marring the metal. I gave my future no more thought for the time being, because the task at hand required a certain amount of concentration. I brought the billet back out to the forge and set it aside while I waited for the coals to reach the proper temperature.

The path had been chosen.

Sword making under normal circumstances was a highly skilled art. Making a sword that would cut through vampire flesh however, that was really something nearly mythical, and as far as I know there were only three Asian sword-smiths in history that had ever succeeded in forging such a blade… me being the very last student of one of them, and the least skilled of any in the art I hated to say.

For me, the process of perfecting my proficiency as much as I was able to, took nearly twenty years of trial and error, building and improving on what my teachers had started as new and different metals became available. My Instructors taught and passed on to me all they had discovered about metals capable of harming vampires. I continued on with their work until I discovered the perfect mixture of iron bearing sands and other unconventional alloys.

To this day, I regret not holding onto that Bowie knife that I had inadvertently used to slay one of Stephanie's killers, and start my life as a half-blood vampire. Had I realized then the significance of a blade that could cut vampire flesh as easily as human, I might have been able to bring it to my teachers in Japan to examine in the hopes of learning more about it's properties, thus possibly expanding our knowledge an unknown number of times had it been available. But I never knew of what became of the knife afterwards, nor have I ever learned from where it might have come from in the first place.

Upon learning of the blade I used, my forge teachers could only speculate that other sword-makers in other countries have also been working at finding ways to battle the undead menace, just as they had been.

So after experimenting with different forging methods over the years, I finally constructed a blade that could withstand cutting through a vampire's flesh time and time again without eventually shattering. The weapons my masters made with the materials available to them at the time, usually worked for a short time before the metal finally fatigued and fractured from the stress of repeated hard contact with vampire flesh. As a rule, it was best not to use the same weapon more than twice before replacing it with a new one. The high turnover rate kept clan masters and their apprentices at the forges day and night on occasion.

Once I had discovered the modern formula that was strong enough to take the abuse, I wasted no time in making most of my weapons, from knives, to arrowheads, to battle swords out of it.

I still have a great many of my minor weapons, as I tended to make several copies of everything at one time, including several of the useful Banshees that were made out of this developed steel.

While I had a number of different covert sword blades in my arsenal, my last main fighting sword – a ninja-style Japanese katana that was my calling card – I surrendered as a show of good faith and intensions to that afore-mentioned trio of crazy vampires, so that they may present it as proof to their masters of my supposed demise.

Now, I had to make a brand new blade, basically for scratch.

Perhaps "from scratch" is not a completely accurate description of the process I was beginning now.

The billet of metal I retrieved from the locker was one of several I had left and had already been purified of any impurities. Sections of it had been folded anywhere from a few hundred to a few thousand times, and then roughly wielded together into the billet. The raw material now waited to be drawn and formed into whatever I needed it to be.

After I heated the metal up so it was workable, the steel would have to be drawn out and pounded into its final shape.

During the tempering stages, parts of the blade-to-be would be wrapped in special clays and quenched in different mediums from specialized oils, to water I had sent to me straight from certain springs in Japan. The quenching process would also determine the slight curve of the blade, and had to be done perfectly. The straight ninja swords you saw in movies were just that, a movie tradition. A straight blade might have been used if the sword was meant to be hidden inside a staff or walking stick, but other than that use, it was rarely seen.

After rough shaping, would be the fine shaping process, followed by the sharpening and polishing stages with Japanese Water Stones.

I already had a number of spare hardware accessories left over, such as the guard or Tsuba; ready to be fitted to the new blade at the same time the handle is made and wrapped.

The last biggest task after that would be making a saya, or scabbard, for the weapon.

The Shinobi-to was not a work of art like a Samurai's Katana would have been. A Shinobi-to was basically a down-and-dirty weapon that could be made relatively quickly, where as a single Katana might take months or even years to produce. The most time consuming process in creating one of my swords or weapons would have been producing the special steel, and then repeatedly folding sections of it. The folding process was complicated in of itself, as the folding was what gave different parts of the sword blade its properties. The edge of the blade was the hardest part, thus folded the most times. The middle of the blade was softer and not folded as many times. The back of the blade was the softest, which gave the blade a spring-like quality to absorb the shock of cutting. Otherwise, the blade was too thin and would shatter even against human flesh. The Japanese had discovered this secret while the Europeans were still producing big and heavy broadswords that were made out of only a single grade of steel or iron.

Luckily, all that repetitive folding work had already been done long ago, and stored as rough billets.

In a matter of just several days, I would again have created another sword that's predecessor was once the terror of the vampire world.

One that not only would cut through lesser grade metals like paper, but through vampire flesh as easily as a normally made katana would slice through the flesh of a mortal human being.

I glanced again at the hunk of metal waiting to be reborn through fire into something I tried to tell myself was a necessary evil.

I hoped for Angel's sake, and perhaps for that of my rediscovered soul… that I was right.


	45. Chapter 44

Chapter Forty-Four:

Harley Dobbins was on the verge of losing what little patience he had left. He swore, and then turned to look at the two leaders from contracted smaller Rogue covens standing before him.

"What the hell do you two ass-wipes mean? You want 'restitution'?"

The pair nervously shuffled their feet, behind them and barely noticed by the men was a female Rogue that was all that was left of the vampires' two combined hunter covens.

"We lost all our people, except for Ryan's Lisa here, trying to take that bitch you have the warrant on," the one called Davis reiterated.

"She's one goddamn little girl!" Dobbins snarled. "How the hell could you lose to her when she was surrounded by two entire covens of hunters? You were in secluded park right on top of her?"

Ryan swallowed hard. "Our packs were hunting so we weren't all together when we first caught her scent. Four of our people were staking out the far north side of the park for prey. We lost thirteen soldiers total last night. We found a pyre in the far north area that might have had maybe five bodies in it, along with two human corpses. At the original site where we caught your prey at, we only found pieces of bodies and not any of the torsos had a head still attached… we looked, but couldn't find them either. The same with the reinforcement party, by the time Davis and I rolled up on the scene, there wasn't a single one of our people that didn't look like they've been run through a wood chipper… also with no heads to be found anywhere!"

"Lisa also thinks that she saw a mongrel slipping away into the bush just as we showed up," Davis added.

"A freakin' Were? Are you morons shittin' me, Davis?" Harley mocked. "This is goddamn Seattle, not some Injun Reservation. It was probably just a stray dog that spooked you, pansies!"

"Not one that big," Lisa squeaked, and then visibly shivered with the memory.

"That's not all," Ryan broke in. "I heard that sometime last week, three hunters running in Marvin Jaccs's King Street Coven turf cut your girl's trail there at a restaurant over on Puget Sound. One of Marvin's Hunter contractors, Vic Kent, said he never even got to lay eyes on her because he ended up tangling with something weird outside the joint."

"What the hell are you jabbering about? What did they mean by something 'weird'?"

"He didn't know what it was," Ryan continued with a small shrug. "Vic could only say that it wasn't a human, it wasn't a mutt, and it sure as hell wasn't one of us. Said whatever the frig it was, it drove a wooden stake all the way through his chest, and when he came to, both this thing and the girl were gone. On top of that, beforehand they traced her scent back to the vehicle she arrived in and arranged for it to be disabled shortly after she left the place. Two other hunters that Vic was running with that night were suppose to follow the girl and take her when she was alone and out of the public view of humans, while Vic went in to keep an eye on her in case she decided to leave some other way. Neither one of these two hunters watching the car have been seen since that night."

"Yeah, I goddamn know!" Harley nearly snarled. "They were both our guys and one is a good friend of mine. Big T assigned them to run with the King Street liaison on patrol of the west side that night. We're still pissed about them not turning back up."

"So you see our point then, Dobbins?" Ryan added. "Bad things seem to happen whenever anyone gets close to this cattle-lover of yours. Your damned warrant didn't mention anything about this prey being some sort ghost or Hunter Killer? And it certainly didn't mention her running with dogs and some unknown thing that can almost take one of us out."

"You left out information that might have warned us and let us prepare a better stalk," Davis piped in. "We think we deserve something to cover our losses with trying to fulfill the papers on this bitch for your coven. It's going to take us a while to build up our own covens again, and Mr. Martino is not going to let us keep our territories if we don't have the means to patrol them like he wants. He'll end up giving our hunting grounds to another group if we can't cover them."

Dobbins glared silently at the two other men for a moment, and then sneered.

"So because you two assholes got your asses handed to you by one little Grazer, it's Big T's problem?" he taunted. "Do you know what Big T would do if I came to him with this bullshit grievance of yours? He'd kill all three of you himself, and then throw me into the blood bank for being stupid enough to bother him with this shit! You scavengers screwed up, so it's your damn problem! She's one grazer for Christ's sake!

"She took out one of your best hunters to get that blood warrant put out on her in the first place… and it looks like she might have got a couple of more the other night to keep that first loser company," Ryan shot back contemptuously.

None of the others saw a thing. Harley Dobbins was a blur and suddenly Ryan was on the ground with the imprint of a fist clearly seen on his jaw and cheek.

"You shut your mouth, ground lapper!" Harley said in cold rage. "Carl was a hundred times the Hunter of both those sad excuses that you called covens combined. Defile his name again, and I'll kill and drain you all myself without asking Big T's permission! Say anything else disrespectful about any of my pack and it'll earn you the same!"

Ryan had his hands up, both in surrender and in a weak attempt to block against further abuse.

"Okay, okay!" he tried to appease; he didn't dare try to rise until Harley gave him permission – not if he wanted to live. Dobbins came from a bigger and slightly better fed coven, and even if they led their own smaller covens, they all knew better than to press their luck with Big T's second in command.

"You damn shit-heads lose this girl, and then make up excuses about mutts and unknown freaks to cover your asses! Then come crying to us looking for a handout? You think you morons would have the brains and imagination to make-up better details for your story, than just using something _some other moron _made-up as a justification for losing her just a few days before! A goddamn _thing_ that nobodies ever seen before – Christ!

"It's true!" Ryan pleaded from the ground. "Vic told me the story himself! He didn't know what it was. Only that it looked like a person, but was stronger than a human, and didn't smell like anything he knew!"

"Right!" Harley Dobbins said with a condescending roll of his eyes. He was tried of these two and their tramp, and just wanted to be rid of them. Being a liaison with other covens working in Martino's territory was part of Dobbins's duties for Big T… and he hated it!

He was just about ready to start putting the boot to Ryan because he figured it make him feel better about the time we just wasted with seeing them. In fact, he'd just cocked his foot back to do just that when something Ryan just said reminded him of something else.

"Wait," he said with a thoughtful look, as he paused above the cringing Rogue vampire. "What did Jacc's guy say about the thing he traded taps with? Something about the scent? What exactly did he say?"

"Just that it didn't smell right for anything he knew," Ryan answered immediately. "That's all! He didn't describe it more than that… just said it wasn't right."

Dobbins froze for a moment more, as he turned the new information over in his head. This was the second time since Carl's death that someone reported a strange scent at a place this bitch had been at that they've never run across before… one that didn't exactly smell right. The first time was at the scene of Carl's death, and Harley had scented it himself!

He put his foot back down on the floor.

"What was that hunter's full name again? The one running with Jacc's stinking coven of prey vamps," he asked the trio.

"Kent! Vic Kent," Davis answered right away. "He's one of only about three hunters hired in with the coven. They added them to boost their man power to cover their assigned areas."

Dobbins filed the name away. He was going to have to go and talk to Mr. Kent and find out first hand what he saw and remembered, and then compare notes. Something told him that two unknown scents in a matter of weeks that experience Rogue Hunters couldn't immediately identify was two too many!

He turned and regarded Ryan, still prone on the ground, and decided he didn't have any more time to waste with these pissants.

"Get out of here, shit-heads" he ordered. "And don't come back… unless you have the girl. Which I doubt will ever happen unless she mysterious drops dead at your feet for some reason."

The three Rogues wasted no time in scrambling out the nearest loading bay door of the old warehouse. Dobbins paused for just a moment, not being able to help that his hunter's instincts were telling there was something important there with this unknown scent that's been possibly found twice now… both times around that grazer girl. And an actual witness claiming to have encountered something not human, Were, or vamp? This just might lead somewhere.

Harley decided to keep this new tidbit to himself for the moment and not bother his leader with it until he'd checked it out more thoroughly. If he came up with something solid, Big T might give him even more leeway to take care of this cattle-lover. Plus, he had to figure Mr. Martino would be very appreciative to the coven that brought news and proof of something unknown running around in his territory.

That alone would have to be worth something… yeah, that would be worth quite a lot actually!


	46. Chapter 45

Chapter Forty-Five:

I was sitting on a mat, on the floor of my workshop, polishing the blade on a medium-grade water stone. A chair and table might have been more comfortable, but this was how my last teacher had taught me the craft of sword finishing, so I stuck with it out of tradition, and probably for nostalgia's sake more then anything else.

Or it just could have been some old habits were just hard to break.

The deadly blade was starting to gleam and take on a mirror-like quality, looking more like the finished product it should. The only thing that 'marred' the steel were the Kanji characters I had stamped into the blade while it was still hot. They were engraved so deep into the metal that no amount of polishing would ever remove them. They would show up black and ugly against the mirror finish when the sword was complete… but that's what I wanted. One of my teachers believed, that like in nature, nothing should ever be truly perfect, which strangely enough was at odds with most philosophies in Japan at the time. So he always included a small flaw of his own making into his blades as a sign of his humbleness in the face of nature. Even if it were in a place that normally would not be seen unless the sword was disassembled. So like him, I purposely flawed my blades – but for a reason all my own and not so humbling as his. I disfigured them with the black script to reflect the way my life had been marred by vampires.

And so I would never forget why I did the things I did… not that forgetting would ever be possible.

Instead of the usual litany I used to use on my blades proclaiming my righteous war on vampire-kind, I changed it for this new blade. And I can't say that Angel's appearance in my life did not have a great deal to do with my revising it.

The new kanji actually turned out beautiful in concept, and flowing in Japanese Kana, but lost a little something in the English translation. But it said something to the effect of, _"I once thought I was an Avenging Angel, only to discover that I was a Fallen One."_

It seemed only proper now, that maybe I had grown a little wiser with age. Just as the old litany used to remind me of my quest for vengeance, this one would serve to remind me not to lose sight of my new purpose, and not to forget the consequences of my actions.

On the opposite side of the blade, just below the saki in the usual place, I had of course engraved my usual calling card. There sat the tradition combination blessing and curse of my shinobi clan, the character "Oni" – which in this case meant "demon", placed in front of nine crossed and overlapping bars, the number nine being a mystical number in and of itself to the Shinobi.

The sign was a blessing to friends and allies, and a curse to enemies. Just above that, was the lone character "Shi", which stood for a number of meanings including the number "four" and one form of the word for "spear"… in this instance it stood for the term, "death".

Dramatic – certainly it was, but symbolism was a deep element of shinobi culture. And at the time I came up with the calling card, I was a little annoyed at vamps in general.

There was a slight rustle at the door to the shop behind me. I didn't bother turning to look as I could already scent her; I just kept to the rhythm I had fallen into, polishing the blade.

She walked around me to silently watch what I was doing. Over the last few days Angel had visited the shop several times before as I worked the steel into a new weapon. Sometimes she stayed for only a moment or two before retreating into the house again, and sometimes she sat with me for a while. It appeared Angel had decided to stay this time because she pulled up an old turned-over milk crate to use as a makeshift stool.

She silently regarded me for a few moments, left elbow on her knee and her elfin chin propped up in the palm of that hand. She knew what I was about with the task, and on her prior visits she had never asked a question of me while I worked. She seemed content to simply sit with me in companionable silence, watching in what might have been interest, or possibly a well-hidden abhorrent fascination, considering what I was making. I found that I didn't want to ask which it was.

Angel never asked me any questions about the blade or my progress on it anywhere else in the house either. It was almost as if we had an unspoken agreement not to speak of the weapon taking shape in the shop.

That's why I was surprised this time when she spoke, so surprised I faltered my cadence on the stone.

"Where did you learn to do that?" she abruptly asked. Her voice was quiet, but it seemed to shatter the stillness of the workshop, even with the rasping of steel on stone.

I immediately found my pace again, working the blade closer to completion.

"In Japan," I told her as I went on with the task.

She was silent for a moment longer. I continued polishing and wondered what would happen next.

"Is that where you learned those other things? The way you fight… us?" she wanted to know.

I almost shuttered at the way she said 'us', as if I would ever group her in with the vampires that had destroyed my prior human life.

"Yes," I said. "That's where I learned the basics of the art. I had to adapt the techniques to fighting vampires over time."

"Did," she started and then faltered for a second. "Did you're teachers know what you are?"

I found that I didn't want to look at her, though I could tell by the tone in her question she was honestly curious about my answer.

"Yes, they knew," I finally told her. I could actually hear her teeth pulling at her lower lips for a moment, as if Angel were in deep thought.

"And they still taught you this stuff?"

"Yes," I said. "I had what you might call a 'letter of introduction' to help me. The people I went to in Japan were very aware of the existence of vampires, and they understood why I wanted to learn."

Angel was very surprised at what I told her.

"They knew about vampires?" she slightly exclaimed. "Why weren't they wiped out by vampires then if they knew the secret?"

I smiled a tiny bit.

"These people were highly skilled in many things. I doubt that any vampire could find them if they didn't want to be found."

"You found them!" Angel pointed out.

"Like I said… I had help," I lightly chuckled.

Angel nodded, as she processed what I had told her in her mind.

"Could you teach me what you do? I want to learn if I can," she said, seeming out of the clear blue to me. This time I just stopped running the sword over the water stone all together.

"Why?" I asked. In hindsight the reason should have been obvious. I was just stunned that she would make the particular request of me.

"I think it would be a good idea for me to learn. I remember what you did to that last Rogue. It was so… _simple_… and so destructive at the same time. I think if I could learn to fight that way it would give me an edge when they come at me again," she explained needlessly. I could see in her eyes that Angel had no doubt that she would again be facing more vampires meaning to kill her.

I have had plenty of time to watch Angel since the day she first arrived. She had lost many things with her memory, but I had observed that Angel was a very spry learner. I considered the notion, and immediately estimated that she would probably learn what I could teach her more than twenty times faster than a human, and at least ten times faster than it had taken me to first learn.

"Of course," I agreed. "We can start a little later today if you wish."

She nodded again. "Yes, I'd like that," she said.

The vampire girl seemed contented with the promise. She intertwined the fingers of her hands as they rested in her lap and then to lapse back into her normal silence, mostly likely so I could return to the work I'd stopped. I looked down at the blade I was finishing, and a darker reason suddenly hit me for why we were both so quiet when she watched me work.

Making the sword was tantamount to returning to a bad habit that nobody liked. I had been avoiding overly thinking about my past as an assassin of sorts, and I guessed Angel had been avoiding the topic for similar reasons.

I set the blade back down on the water stone once more and turned toward her to clear the air as much as I would be able to.

"Angel I…" I began, and the discomfort of what I wanted to say build up in just those two words.

She moved with vampire swiftness, and gently placed a finger against my lips to keep me from speaking further.

"Shhh…!" she said. "You don't have to say it. I know why it bothers you, and I also know it's necessary if we are to have a chance of surviving this."

I relaxed visibly, and she withdrew her finger and gave me a soft dazzling smile. She looked down at the half-finished sword and noticed the design in the blade.

"What's this?" she asked.

I told her the meaning of the nine-barred design, and she frowned just a little.

"What's the character over the lines mean?"

"It's the Japanese character 'Oni'," I informed her. "It can mean several things like most kanji. Oni can mean 'Tiger', but in this case it means, 'Demon'."

Now Angel gave me a look that said she thought I was teasing her.

"How can the same character mean both Tiger and Demon?" she asked in challenge.

"Easy," I chuckled. "The Japanese thought tigers were demons. They were very much afraid of them."

"Oh?" Angel replied with sudden understanding. Apparently that made good sense to her. "Okay, what's the other character over the whole thing stand for?" she continued.

I pursed my lips because that one I really didn't want to have to explain.

My look must have been answer enough, because Angel took one glance at me and both her eyebrows climbed high on her forehead.

"Okay, never mind that one… cuz I don't think I want to know now," she said. She casually flipped the blade over to the opposite side to look at the longer line of characters etching the blade.

"What does all this say?" she inquired of me with bright interest next.

I then told her that also.

That seemed a little better, because after hearing what I had written there, her understanding smile grew even larger. She looked up at me with soft golden eyes, and placed one hand easily at the nape of my neck as she leaned in slightly to me.

"That's what I love about you," she whispered. "Your willingness to change for the better."

I felt my eyebrows lift high on my face in doubt, I still wasn't all that sure that what I planned on doing now was any better or righteous than what I had done fifty-some years ago. I should have guarded my reaction closer, as in this short time Angel had come to know me like no other, and she read my features correctly.

"You doubt me?" she asked a little teasingly.

I next felt my lips twisted into a slight frown, I wasn't sure exactly how much she was mocking me. She grinned like a cat and leaned in closer to me, and I immediately got the feeling I'd fallen into some sort of trap. Though, with a vampire being this close to you, I suppose one couldn't help but feel trapped… if they were smart.

"Could anyone who hates vampires so passionately… kiss me_ – a vampire –_ like this?" Angel asked.

She seemed to rush at me in a blur even in that short distance, and instantly my arms were filled with her cool lithe body, and her soft lips were pressed tightly to mine. Her arms locked around my neck and she half-purred, half-growled in victory, as she bowled me over onto my back. Angel's giggle sounded bright as crystal bells as she found herself on top.

I did the only thing a true shinobi warrior who was over a hundred-years-old could do when faced with a situation such as this.

I surrendered.


	47. Chapter 46

Chapter Forty-Six:

It wasn't too hard for Angel to convince me to set the work on the new sword aside for a break, and retire with her back to the homey comforts of the living room. There we made the couch our playground for a while.

Kissing Angel was akin to standing at the gateway into heaven, and never could I remember having something so wonderfully alive filling my arms.

We did our best not to take it too far, considering the likely dire circumstances of getting too carried away in the moment.

It was during one of these enforced cool down moments when Angel suddenly lifted her head from my chest to glance up at me.

"Let me see them," she abruptly asked, placing her fingertips at the site of my jaw.

I blinked at her in confusion, as I had no idea was she was asking to see at the moment.

She smiled a bit shyly when she saw I hadn't a clue.

"Your fangs," she supplied lowly. "Let me see your fangs."

"Why?" I asked, going from confusion to open bewilderment.

"Because… I want to see them." Her answer came out almost breathlessly and her golden eyes turned a bit glassy. I suddenly had the feeling that we were about to embark on a new form of vampire foreplay.

"I don't think that would be very wise," I countered, getting a bit nervous.

"Please?" she said. "It'll be alright. I promise not to let it go too far."

I suddenly considered that whatever she had in mind might not bode well if she felt compelled to make that particular promise to me out of the apparent blue.

I grimaced. "I don't think I can make the same promise," I added.

"Don't worry. I'm stronger than you are, and I can see that nothing happens."

Now I outright frowned. There was no doubt that under normal conditions, Angel was indeed the strongest one either of us. But I wasn't sure if that would be true taking into account this odd bloodlust urge that recently began coming over me. If I came under its spell, I had no idea how strong I might become, or if Angel would be able to fight me off even with her full strength. The girl just has no idea how much she was like candy to a sugar-starved man.

"Please!" Angel added again when I didn't answer. She batted her big golden eyes at me for good measure.

Oh god… when she looked at me that way, I might as well just shoot myself in the foot rather than deny her.

"All… right," I replied, knowing damn well just how weak I was being… and what a bad idea this was. She seemed happy though, and perked up. Angel watched me like a tourist waiting to see _Old Faithful_ the geyser go off… and I was strangely wondering if the odd attention she was giving me would give my canine teeth performance problems?

Never need to fear on that issue with her scent in the air, as my fangs were more than happy to slid right into place with the thought. For once though, I didn't notice the annoying feeling they always gave me. Probably because Angel's sudden fascination held all of my attention.

Her pretty lips formed a slight "O" shape, as her hands gently cupped the sides of my face and jaw. Her thumbs caressed my lips gently at first, and then went on to touch my elongated teeth lightly.

By all accounts, it should have seemed very outlandish having somebody who wasn't a dentist sticking their fingers in your mouth to play with your teeth. But with Angel, it was anything but odd… in fact in boarder on the wickedly erotic!

When her skin touched my teeth, I actually had to stifle a moan because I could taste her!

Her eyes started to edge black, and before I could warn her, Angel crushed her mouth to mine. I was so surprised I couldn't react, even when I felt her tongue teasing my fangs.

No matter how hard I tried, I didn't seem to be able to retract my canines. They seemed to have sprouted a will of their own. I did the best I was able to control the kiss, attempting to keep Angel from cutting herself on my teeth.

That I had no doubt would probably be bad in a very big way.

My efforts turned out to be in vain, as she lunged particularly hard at me one time too many, and I felt her bottom lip catch on the tip of one of my canines. The next thing I knew, a few drops of the sweetest nectar I've ever tasted landed on my tongue.

My blood caught fire!

And I was almost immediately terrified like I never have been before.

Angel must have tasted herself, because she suddenly growled into my mouth. A second later, she broke the almost brutal kiss and drew back slightly, enough that I could see there was very little gold left in her eyes now. Her perfect teeth were bared at me in a silent snarl.

Those hot vampire eyes locked with mine, and I wanted nothing more than to dive in and taste more of her. Only my partial terror at what was happening kept me from acting… but only just barely.

Angel stared hard at me for several seconds, and I noticed she was panting almost heavily… very odd for someone who didn't need to breathe, but I conclude she was taking my scent in.

She had to be; because the only thing I could smell was her!

It was almost with a deep sigh of relief that her eyes softened a bit and her 'breathing' slowed. I hoped that meant she was reining herself in.

I didn't know what I expected to happen next, but I didn't expect her to climb into my lap like she did, and wrap her arms around me. She pressed her cheek up to the side of my temple as she clung to me.

"Put your teeth on my neck!" she suddenly demanded.

"What?" I asked, dumbly. I thought I had misheard what she said, as surely Angel would never have asked me to do something so reckless and insane!

"Please!" she pleaded this time. "Just touch my neck with them… you don't have to bite if you don't want to."

I was wrong! I did hear correctly. The bigger problem was that I wanted to do just that… but I sure as hell wasn't going to!

"Angel…" I started to say.

"Justan, just do it for me please! I can control it, I swear!"

I didn't know what she or we were suppose to be controlling, but I was pretty sure what she was asking wasn't going to turn out too well.

"Trust me, just do it!" she begged again.

It was probably a good thing I was so scared, otherwise it just might have turned out as bad as I feared it would. Something in her voice convinced me on a subconscious level, and before I knew it I turned my head in toward her throat to nuzzle, and then I lightly raked the ivory skin there with the tips of my teeth.

The effect was electric.

Angel suddenly shuttered in my arms, and the single deep breath she drew in seemed to last through several stages, each one building to a greater level than the one before it.

I became a bit braver when I didn't lose all control and bury my teeth into her that first instant, and let my fangs lay on her neck, and then turned the gesture into a kiss. Angel hugged herself even closer to me, her hands almost clawing at my back as she pressed.

I suddenly realized she was moaning in pleasure… and the sound seemed to be building toward something.

It struck me then… was what's happening what I thought it was?

"Harder! Bite if you want… I want you too!" she panted.

Oh no, I wasn't going to do that… as much as I want too, I told myself silently

"Oh God! I wish I could bite you… so you could feel it too," she groaned.

I was glad she was in control enough that she didn't bite. She kept asking me to press my teeth into her harder for the next several seconds, and the she seemed to reach wherever it was she was going.

"Oh…oh! Its almost here!" she announced as she suddenly pulled away from me. I didn't have time to wonder or ask her was she was talking about, as she just as abruptly grabbed the side of my face again, and this time not as gentle as before.

I saw her suck in her lower lip, and make a sawing motion with her jaw. When her lip reappeared, I saw it was covered in blood.

She had used her teeth to cut her lip opened again for some reason.

She moaned once more, and then again forced her lips to mine. Part of me looked forward to tasting her blood a second time. Part of me knew I should fight her off… because I didn't think I could control myself if I tasted her again.

But this time, it was different… very different.

As our lips touched because I was just too weak to fight, something like a spark leaped from her to me. I only had the briefest instant to realize that her blood surged with a strange life.

Before a tidal wave of pleasure so overwhelming struck me, that I lost all consciousness.

I came around some time later to find Angel still on top of me, cuddled tightly to my chest.

About that same time, she began to slowly stir as well. She purred contently when she glanced up to discover me watching her.

My mouth felt like it was full of cotton, and it took me a moment to get it in order so I could speak.

"What…" I started, then had to pause a moment to work a slight lingering numbness from my tongue as well. "What was that?" I asked finally.

Angel smiled and stretched like a cat waking up.

"Part of being a vampire… I guess," she answered dreamily.

I thought it over for a moment, replaying it all over in my mind several times.

"How did you know?" I asked. I didn't have to elaborate on what I meant.

The girl shrugged, and hugged herself tighter to me.

"Instinct mostly," she finally told me, while she idly played with the fabric of my shirt. "I just knew what I wanted and it happened."

"But that part at the end?" I inquired. That seemed too much to be place solely on instinct's doorstep.

She shrugged again from her comfortable position, and then went on speaking to my chest.

"I don't know how or why that came to me," she explained. "We couldn't go about it the right way because I'm sure we're suppose to share blood, and at the end I just suddenly knew a way to share my feeling with you, so I did. I don't think I can do that too many times, because it seems to pretty much drain me."

And indeed, she did look a bit exhausted to me… she seemed tired, but in a contented sort of way.

"I guess it's in the blood. The blood told me what to do."


	48. Chapter 47

Chapter Forty-Seven:

The problem with my lack of current information on what was happening in Seattle, and in the vampire world in general, needed to be addressed without further delay.

So the next morning after the strange blood incident with Angel, I paused in my work on the new sword for a short time, and set out to rectify that shortcoming. Angel had originally wanted to come with me, but she still looked drawn and tired from, what we have dubbed for lack of a better term, "the Blood Spark".

When she awoke that early morning from her healing slumber still feeling lethargic, I was very concerned that the pleasurable act had sapped precious strength from her. I then silently cursed myself for not thinking of the possible consequences to the girl's health, and vowed that I would not allow her to try it again until she was absolutely well and whole.

On the other hand, it did save me from a long drawn out argument with Angel over her accompanying me. Instead I left her sitting on the couch with a mug fill of cattle blood, surfing the TV channels looking for something interesting to watch at six in the morning.

And so it was once again I found myself back in old and familiar surroundings about an hour later. The back office of the one time Houngan's store reeked of old marijuana smoke, and the over-flowing ashtray atop the cluttered desk held the remaining evidence of what I assumed was a hemp party gone wild the night before.

I gazed down at Jerome Walker as he lay slacked mouthed and snoring while sprawled out in the old desk chair with his feet lost somewhere in the wreckage of the desk top, and I frowned as any thought of an apology I might have made for the unannounced early hour visit vacated my mind.

Instead, I leaned down and lightly rapped him twice in the middle of his forehead with my knuckles.

"Wakie – Wakie," I said into his ear in time with the double tap.

Jerome's eyes flew wide open, and he stared to scream in alarm as he beheld my smiling face just inches from his own. That might have been the worst to happen to him... if he hadn't also started to wildly pinwheel his arms and legs like a drowning swimmer. The unruly thrashing caused his chair to tip over, and both it and Jerome met the floor with a resounding crash. I managed to back-up a step and not get caught up in the tiny catastrophe.

Jerome groaned lowly as he slowly tried to extricate himself from the pileup.

"Shit man! What the hell is your problem?" Walker asked as he managed to find his way to his hands and knees. "Couldn't you just call instead of showing up in my crib at..." he paused to lift his arm and look at his wristwatch. After he saw the time he groaned again, only deeper this time. "Its seven O' clock in the goddamned morning! Why do you hate me so much, man?"

Across the room, Jerome's hired help had roused himself from where he'd just been dozing on the couch. He had been snoring just as noisily as Jerome had when I first entered.

"Sit back down, Brutus," I said casually to the big man. His eyes flashed opened in shock when he realized who I was, and not surprisingly he immediately sat back down on the couch just like an obedient child would.

Jerome saw his man retreat, and shot him a sour look.

"A fat lot of help you are, Terrance," he called over snidely.

"I'll bust any normal person's head you tell me too. But you don't pay me enough to trade taps with no monster, Jay," the big man countered. "And I don't think you ever could pay me enough for that anyway."

I smiled at the descendant of my old friends.

"Yeah, Jerome... you shouldn't really be so cheap and pay big Brutus here more than you are," I agreed.

The thin black man twisted his lips up in discontent and then waved us both off with a dismissing flick of his hand.

"What do you want, man?" he asked turning to look up at me. "Aren't you getting your deliveries regular like?"

"They're fine," I said, offering the younger man my hand to help him up. Surprisingly, Jerome took it without hesitation and allowed me to jerk him to his feet. "I'm here because unfortunately I find myself in need of your help once again."

Jerome rolled his eyes and shoulders like a put out child.

"Come on, man! I can't have no dead guy hanging around my crib… its bad for business! Besides, you said we were done with each other."

"The correct term is, 'Undead'."

"Dead… Undead… Livin' La Loca Vida, man… I don't care. We had a deal! We're suppose to be square now," Jerome complained.

"I'm altering our arrangement. Pray I don't alter it any further," I quoted darkly, and then waited for him to recognize the movie passage. The boy simply just gazed at me with a blank expression.

I sighed in mild exasperation.

"Our new arrangement involves more money," I eventually added.

Jerome's disposition suddenly brightened considerably. "Well... why didn't you just say so in the first place, Boss? Let's talk business, Drac my man."

Jerome up-righted his old ratty office chair and scooted it closer to his desk once more. He surveyed the mounts of clutter on the desktop with a thoughtful look, and I found myself wondering if he even knew what was all suppose to be within the disaster area. It must not have been too important because Jerome shook his head and then shrugged, before using his arm to sweep most of it off the opposite side of the desk and onto the floor.

Judging by the looks of it, that seemed to be his common system of filing anyway.

Then as he sat back down, Walker offered me a seat in a rickety old arm chair that looked as if it had several unknown species of mold growing on it's fake leather seat.

"What you looking to deal on, man?" he asked.

I declined the offer of the fungus-infested chair with an obvious look of distaste - which Jerome seemed not to notice or just simply ignored.

Instead, I tossed a small duffle bag on top of the considerably smaller trash heap still left sitting on the desk.

"I'm buying into the store front as a silent partner. A very silent partner," I announced, leaving no doubt that I wasn't making my "offer" a request in any way.

"What the hell for? You lookin' to become a dope dealer too?" Jerome wanted to know. He looked at me as if I'd suddenly grown two heads.

"No, Jerome, I'm not," I rejoined with a displeased look.

He shrugged carelessly at my reply, and pulled the duffle over closer toward him. Walker unzipped the bag and peered inside, only to whistle a split second later at the stacks of bound bills he found there. "Screw me, dead! There's got to be at least 125 'G's in here!" He pulled out two bundles and fanned them, obviously looking to see if they were all real.

"Two hundred thousand to be exact," I corrected.

He baulked at the amount, and then dropped the stacks he was holding onto his desktop as if they were suddenly radioactive.

"Where the hell did you get 200-thou in cash, Drac?" Walker inquired.

"_Where_ is not important," I told him firmly. "_What_ is important is that if you call me, Drac, one more time… I will reach over and pull your tongue out." Jerome threw both his hands up as if to say 'no offense meant', so I continued. "Do you think someone as old as I am wouldn't have amassed several fortunes by now?" I didn't see the need to enlighten him on just where my so-called fortunes had come from.

"Okay, I buy that. So you're just going to hand over this big ole' bag of green? To me?" Jerome asked.

"Yes. As the new partner in this business, just as I said."

"And you're not worried I'm not just going to split with it? Just head south of the border maybe?"

"There is always that possibility," I admitted. "But I can always find you in that case... no matter where you go. And that would not be a reunion you would relish very much in fact," I continued with a cold smile. "Besides, I don't think you're the type to take off with only a mere two hundred thousand dollars. I believe you would hold out for a much larger amount before you considered fleeing."

"Okay, maybe you know me better than I thought... so now, what's the catch, man?" he wanted to know, holding me with shrewd eyes. "This is only the second time I've ever laid eyes on you, and I already know I ain't gonna like whatever conditions you got hidden up your sleeve."

I grinned again, because he was absolutely correct. I knew he wasn't going too much like my new ground rules.

"The catch is that things are going to be done somewhat differently around here from now on."

"I knew it! Beware dead guys bearing gifts. Different... how?" he asked, his tone going all flinty.

"For one, there will be no more drugs sold _or_ kept here. The same goes from all the stolen property you have in back," I informed Jerome. "As of right now, this place is holy ground. You have today only to have it all moved out of here. I cannot stop you from conducting your drug trade from another location, but nothing comes in here from now on. And nothing is to connect your drugs or other ventures to this store."

"What! Are you shitting me, man? What makes you think I'm going to go for that?"

I leaned in closer to him.

"Because if you don't... I'll just kill you, wait for the store to come up for sale and buy it myself out right, and then put my own people in here to run the place."

"You wouldn't!" Walker exclaimed.

I just grinned.

"Dammit, you would! You're not even giving me a choice, are you?" Jerome said, somewhat miserably.

"Sure, Jerome… you have a choice between those two opinions. One choice may redeem your life; the other ends its pitiful existence today. Pick one now... because I have other things to do," I told him.

"Okay, okay, man... just chill out with death threats. You're a real psychopath, you know that?" said Walker. "We'll do whatever you want… not that I have a whole lot of choice in the matter." He spread his hands to indicate he was helpless, which was pretty much the case actually. "Mind telling me just what we're going to be doing out of here then?"

"Exactly what your grandfathers intended it to be, a Vodoun store."

"Are you freaking serious? You're gonna throw 200K away on that crap... and make me lose income from my dope business on top of it? You're not only unnatural, you're crazy too, man."

The lad was a might angry it seems.

"Buck up, Walker. It wouldn't be that bad trying your hand at making an honest living," I answered. "But you're just not only going to be selling voodoo supplies out of here... at the same time you're going to be quietly gathering information for me about what's going on in those circles."

Jerome shook his head in bewilderment.

"Come again?" he asked. "You want me to sit around here all day... selling chicken bones to freaks and listening to whatever crap their shoveling... just so I can report it all back to you? I take it all back. You're not crazy, man. You're full blown nuts!"

"That's the third time you've commented on my state of mind in less than five minutes. Is that you're _professional_ opinion, Walker?" I asked.

"No…just a small observation, Archer."

I grinned sickly. "You have no concept on just how bad it _could_ be."

Jerome frowned.

"Hoo boy, can't wait to ride that roller-coaster," he quipped. His manner was anything but happy and fully cooperative at the moment.

"Think about it, Jerome," I then said. "Do you honestly think I'm the only one of my kind running around out there?"

The young black man narrowed his eyes a bit, the thought had apparently never occurred to him before this moment. Suddenly an understanding light dawned on him.

"You're looking to get the 411 on others like you!" he suddenly spouted. "If anyone would know anything about nightmares like you running around on the streets... it would be the nutcases coming in here to buy this junk."

I smiled, genuinely pleased for a change.

"Your father will be pleased that you haven't killed off all your brain cells smoking this crap," I said, while pointedly shoving the stinking ashtray further away from where I stood besides the desk.

The boy now grinned in return. I was sure he probably had a never-ending battle with his father over his casual drug use growing up.

"So what are we all up into?" Walker asked me showing some slight interest now that he had a better handle on what I was about.

"There is two lists in the bottom of that bag," I said, while pointing at the duffle. "From the list marked 'stock', you will purchase those items and restock the store front with them. I also want you to go through those old filing cabinets and see if there's any other items your grandfather and father used to stock the store with regularly that I might have missed, and I want you to add whatever you find to the list if its not already there.

"You will also use part of the money in the bag to clean up and refurnish the store. I want this place looking respectable again within a week and opened for business. You will also use part of the money for advertising. I want the word out on the new reopening as soon as possible. I'm well aware that your father insisted you graduate college with some kind of certificate, and that you do have a degree in business... so do not toy with me and drag your feet getting this set up properly."

He looked a little stunned that I knew that fact about him, which was good, because I wanted to keep Jerome guessing as to exactly how much I did know about him. I figured it go some ways to keeping him in line when I was busy with other more important matters.

The boy recovered his shock quickly, and gave me that street-smart smile of his.

"Well... seeing you know I got a sheepskin in this here subject... you'll believe me when I tell that 200K is going to be cutting it pretty tight for everything you want done, especially this fast. To do a first-rate job I'm gonna need more operating dough, specially if you want the advertising done right. And I'm talking print, air play, and TV, my man."

The street wise drug dealer slipped away so fast to be replaced by what appeared to be a knowledgeable business man that I looked at him blankly, attempting to judge just how much more cash he might actually need and how much he was just squeezing me for. I had already expected to fork out more funds for this venture, so I wasn't surprised at all that the matter came up.

"I'll send over another two hundred thousand," I finally agreed when he continued to look somewhat sincere.

Jerome's eyes blinked wide for just a split second revealing his surprise that I had agreed so easily.

"If you're not giving me a choice in this and it's all I got... I wanna go wide, man. Cover the whole west coast. Push it hard enough in the right markets and I can make this place the voodoo store to the Stars! Yeah, I like the sound of that. Plenty of them whack-job actors are into this supernatural shit, you dig? Do you think you can make it an extra 300K instead of two? There's also city inspections, and I might have to grease a few palms to get the joint up to code as quick as you want it. Know what I'm sayin'?"

"Fine," I said, actually figuring I was getting off fairly cheap. I had originally estimated I would be dumping about $600 thousand into this place to get what I wanted out of it as fast as I needed it. "You can even keep the profits for yourself as long as I get the results I want. So by all means, peddle this place to Hollywood if you think that's for the best.

"Now... that brings me to the second list, and this is the important one. There you will find a number of items that I want you to keep careful track of the people who buy them. I want you to gather whatever personal info you can by credit cards, checks, have them join a mailing list, or give them a free ticket to a in-store raffle... I don't care how you get it, but I want to know what they bought, how much of it, and at least where they live. Anything else you can find out about them without alerting them to the fact that is what you are doing would be a plus."

"So why we going all ninja on the other night freaks?" he wanted to know.

I couldn't help but grin even wider at his choice of adverbs... if he only had a clue!

"Gathering intelligence on your opponents is one of the first rules in the art of war," I informed him.

Jerome's sly smile suddenly died on his dark features.

"You at war, man?" he questioned a moment later, very serious now. "Cuz I ain't signing up to be nobody's flunky in any monster turf war, dig?"

"Yes," I admitted honestly. "But its not one of my making, and its coming your way wither you like it or not. Most humans don't realize it, but there's been a battle in the shadows going on for years for control of Seattle. Part of it has recently become a inconvenience for my quiet life-style."

"And what are you going to do about it?" He crossed his arms over his chest as he waited for me to answer his question.

"I'm going to put a big enough dent in it, that it'll decide to give me and mine a very wide berth."

"That include me and my interests too?" Jerome wanted to know. He was asking for a sort of protection from whatever was going on in the city. "Seeing we're gonna be partners and such."

"Jerome," I said seriously. "This is not the first time this dark side has touched your family. Something similar to this led to me meeting your great-grandfather and the lasting friendship that resulted. Yes... as long as you remain useful to me, and do what I tell you to, I will do my best to keep you and your people safe and out of this," I confirmed after a few seconds.

I didn't know what good I could do the boy in that regard, as I was barely sure I had a chance at saving Angel and myself... but if he helped us and did what I asked of him, I would do my best to keep that promise.

Fat chance that it was!

The younger man nodded his head in agreement.

"I can work with that... I'm in," he finally said.

I left the store front about a half an hour later only to travel back to one of the local bank branches I used. I had an understanding and a private financial arrangement with the manager of this particular bank to grant me 24-hour access to any of my deposit boxes.

When I left there this time, one of my numerous safety deposit boxes was now a total of half a million dollars, plus a delivery service fee, lighter.

In addition to funding the store renovation, I had promised Jerome that as long as the operation was producing usable data that I would support him in modest comfort if the store weren't making enough of a profit. I also warned him against scamming the customer's credit cards or bank accounts on pain of annoying me badly... just in case he got any ideas for a side venture. I definitely didn't want anything going on that would call the wrong type of attention to the shop if it were going to be the foundation of my new intelligence network.

Just as I was leaving, Walker was already on his cell phone calling in some of his people to start clearing out the store of its ill-gotten goods. Oddly, the boy seemed strangely energized with the new project, and between dialing phone numbers he was rattling off ideas and things to do to the large man called Terrance. It appeared that the big man could barely keep up scribbling notes down on a pad of paper, as fast a Jerome fired them off.

I left feeling somewhat satisfied with the morning's labor. I'd laid the groundwork for my new intelligence gathering net, and with some luck, I hoped to start seeing some results from it within a few weeks.

White Crow's sources might have been pretty good so far, judging by what he told me in the park the night we met. But it was best to just assume anything coming through it to me was either going to be skewed or censored according to the werewolf's needs. I had to suspect that, because its what I would do if our situations were reversed.

I felt better knowing I was soon going to have my own independent sources out there... if for the very least, to confirm anything the Indian's people might tell us in the future. That is, if we ever did hear from the Indian Were again.

And in any case... I wasn't exactly sure how far I should trust the old Were's motives just yet, as much as I instinctively liked him for some reason. So it was best to see that I got my own eyes and ears out in public working for Angel and me.


	49. Chapter 48

Chapter Forty-Eight:

Gary White Crow, as it turned out, was as good as his word about finding us.

He showed up unexplainably on my front porch one afternoon a few days later, and after reintroducing himself in his human form to Angel, she warily led him out to my workshop where I was still working on my new sword.

Angel looked a tad nervous having a Werewolf in the house at first, stealing quick side-glances up at the tall old man. Gary however made sure to always include Angel in the conversation and his easy manner soon won her over. I was glad to see her finally relax around the strange man, as I had a gut feeling he was either going to turn out to be a good asset to our cause. Either a comrade-in-arms, or at the very least, useful in some other minor way with helping us get out of our sticky state of affairs.

White Crow also filled us in on what took place in the park after we left. By his account, he'd given the Rogues a serious surprise beating, and by the dark way he chuckled as he recounted the tale, neither Angel nor I had any reason to disbelieve his story… especially after witnessing first hand what he could do to a vamp in his wolf form.

He also had something in the way of good news… for him and his purposes anyway. Apparently he'd made some headway with the other Lone Wolves currently in the Seattle area, and they would soon be gathering for a meeting to discuss a joining of forces for a temporary pack alliance, to see to the growing vampire problem in the city. He seemed chipper at the prospected, and very hopeful of something being worked out. White Crow then confided in us that such temporary pacts between Loners were often sticklers to work out in the beginning, due to the dominate alpha personality each Loner possessed, but things generally ran smoothly once the details were ironed out.

He then surprised us by asking if Angel and I wanted in with his group.

Angel blinked big eyes in open surprised.

"But… we're vampires," she said. "Isn't that going to be a problem?"

"Naw… No. Mostly not," the old man said in a slight contradicting tumble.

Both Angel and I were anything but reassured. We tossed worried glances at each other for a second.

"Mostly not?" I asked for clarification.

"Well… that's one of the small particulars that has to be worked out yet at the meeting," he admitted, overly accenting the word 'small'. "Some of the Weres I talked to aren't as old as I am, and haven't had a chance to see the real world… broaden their horizons so to speak."

"Gary… _that_ doesn't sound much like a small 'particular," I said. "It sounds more like, 'Holy crap, there's a werewolf chewing on my ass' kind of detail."

"No, it doesn't sound small. And yes it does… about the chewing part," Angel agreed immediately.

"Its just a tiny minor detail that'll be worked out, Chief," White Crow replied. "I've already told them who you are, and that it be a good thing to have you and your squaw on the team with us."

I cringed suddenly, for a whole bunch of reasons. And White Crow telling a bunch of strangers about me was the very least among them.

"Umm, Gary… I started to say, but Angel was already a blur.

She was suddenly standing in front of the old Were, her tiny fist full of his flannel shirt and growling lowly.

"That probably wasn't the best way to say that," I finished. "Angel…?" I partly asked, partly ordered… because I wasn't sure which approach would get me the quickest non-violent results.

"I'm nobody's _squaw_," Angel said coldly, even though hot anger tinged the edges of her eyes black.

"Easy, darling… I was just teasing. No harm or disrespect intended," said the old man, holding up both hands in a peaceful manner. At six-foot-one, Gary White Crow looked a little comical backing down from four-foot-ten, Angel. And it might have been funny… if both of these people hadn't been two of the most dangerous creatures I'd ever encountered.

"Honey," I tried again. "Please let go of the Werewolf."

She didn't move for a moment, merely staring at White Crow. The old man shrugged lightly as if to reinforce his claim that it was all in fun.

Abruptly a small grin broke over Angel's scowl.

"I was just teasing too," she suddenly said, and then leaned in to plant a kiss on White Crow's weathered cheek before letting go of his clothing. "Would you like a glass of lemonade?" she asked sweetly, out of the blue.

White Crow seemed rather insanely delighted with the refreshment offer, instead of on edge from being one breath away from a battle to the death.

"Yes, please!" he announced brightly, as if the two of them hadn't looked as if they were headed for big trouble just mere seconds ago.

Angel smiled just as vibrantly and said she'd be right back with it, then turned and headed for the kitchen. I watched her go in bewilderment, and when we were alone, I turned back to the old Were.

"Sorry about that," I apologized, even though he had sort of asked for it.

Surprisingly White Crow waved away my act of contrition.

"Ah, don't think anything of it, Devil-man," he said to me. "If your girl there had wanted me, she would have just taken me. We were just testing the waters and getting to know each other's boundaries… that's a good sign. Shape shifters and vamps have always either been at conflict or had uneasy truces at best. I think we understand each other now and can work together with the _uneasy truce_ part if we have to."

"So that was just a sizing up contest?"

"Sort of… I guess you can say."

I frowned. "Well, the next time you two decided to play… I'd appreciate a little heads up. It would save me some gray hair."

White Crow shook his head.

"No need. I think we're done. Its all good."

I twisted my lips into a disagreeable shape, just as Angel rejoined us with a glass of lemonade for our guest, and one for me also.

We carried on with discussing the details of Gary's proposed idea, of Angel and I joining up with his group of Loners. On the outside the prospect was appealing on one point… if only because it would give us the protection of numbers. The down side, was that Weres and Vamps don't mix well part.

White Crow finished his lemonade and begged for another, while Angel stole sips from my glass, being careful to not overdo it.

We carefully turned over the pros and cons of such an alliance, exploring each point cautiously for the better part of an hour, and three more glasses of lemonade for our guest. Gary also demolished an entire bag of chocolate chip cookies by himself, which was our initial introduction into the incredible metabolism of a werewolf.

In the end, Angel and I had decided against allying ourselves too closely with the Weres for the moment, at least until White Crow could better guarantee the acceptance of his people partnering with two vampires.

I also cited that it would probably be much safer for the time being if all of us operated as cooperating separate cells, and just equally shared information we gathered.

I reminded the Indian that the Rogues and their friends wanted Angel, and therefore me, pretty badly… making us too hot to be brought in close with Gary's people for too long. If we were too strongly linked to White Crow's pack of Loners, we risked leading the Rogues or other vampires to the Weres as well if we were found or captured.

On the other hand, that didn't exactly mean we couldn't work in tandem on certain occasions when a good opportunity to hurt our enemies arose. There might come times where we could use Werewolf backup… or even where the wolves could use us as lures to bait one of their ambushes.

It was something in the manner of headway… but not a whole lot seeing we still had just about every vampire in Seattle looking to make good on Angel's death warrants.

On our personal end, Angel and I needed something to either drastically lower the odds against us… or ideally, erase them all together. Then the two of us would be out of the mess free and clear.

That's when I finally decided that my best bet would be the idea I had been kicking around of going to the head vamp himself in this case, and seeing if I could make a deal.

The idea was crazy in so many ways… and not only for the sole reason I was going to have to specifically reveal that I was still alive to a vampire whom I was reasonably sure counted himself among my greatest enemies… even though he'd never actually laid eyes upon me.

But also because to make this insanity work… I was going to have to walk right into his house, introduce myself, and say hello.

White Crow was of course simply dead set against anything that involved making peace with red-eyed vampires. Even if Angel and I managed to get out of our situation, that would still leave him and his group to deal with the rising vampire problem in Seattle on their own.

I could only apologize to the old man, but pointed out that two vampires _do not_ a coven make. Angel and I only had each other to fall back on in the end, and if I had the opportunity to get Angel safely out of this without fighting, I was going to take it.

The old Were fumed for a moment, but then he seemed to take in Angel's small hand in mine – clenched in unconscious fear – and her pleading eyes of soft gold, and his heart melted.

He grudgingly said he guessed he couldn't blame me for seeing to Angel first, and then pepped himself up a moment later with the thought that talking with the head bloodsucker probably wouldn't get me anywhere. He then promptly reminded me when the coven leader refused to deal, that I should kill him right away and save the Indian and his pack mates the trouble. He chuckled at the thought of the disarray that would leave Martino's coven in… thinking that it would also make the rest of the vamps easy pickings for his group if they lacked a solid leader.

I merely shook my head at the old Were's strange ways of looking at things.

With this reckless plan set in my mind… I asked White Crow for what he knew about where Benito Martino kept his headquarters these days?

The old Indian looked a little shocked when I explained exactly why I wanted to know, because up until that point he assumed I meant to meet Martino on something akin to neutral ground. I hadn't said anything about going right up and knocking on Martino's front door.

Angel of course looked horrified at the concept.

I lucked out, and White Crow already knew where Martino's latest haunt was. He'd even gone through the trouble to verify his information through public land records. Any coven holding property in Seattle did it officially through public property deeds so that the Volturi could randomly check up on them to be sure the covens weren't grabbing up more territory than was allowed to them.

Supposedly the Volturi penalty for not filing the proper paperwork with the Clerk's Office was exactly the same for claiming too much territory… the gruesome beheading of the coven's leader.

Fat lot of good that law did the Italians now, as the bigger covens seizing up more illegal territories were smart enough not to leave anything on paper leading back to them for the Volturi to follow. What they simply just didn't take over, apparently the Divine Illuminati was helping its agents hide by other means.

After a bit, Gary also seemed to warm to the idea of me going into Martino's place to get a look around inside. He figured that he and his new wolf pack could eventually use the info… providing I got out alive again to pass it along to them.

Angel unwillingly accepted that I was probably going to do exactly what I planned, and made hints that she was going to be going with me.

I stopped any thoughts she had about that right there. Following me unexpectedly into an opened park was one thing, but following me into an enclosed space such as a building full of enemy vampires was a entirely different story, one that she didn't have the skill or experience in.

Even though I had started to teach her some of the unarmed fighting skills I had, she was a long way from learning the others crafts such as how to infiltration enemy territory undetected.

There was no way I was going to budge on that… and she had better know it.

Or perhaps it should be… I had better find a way to make her understand it.

Angel eventually bit her lip and stopped debating the subject with me in front of Gary, but I could tell we were going to be picking it right up in private the moment he left.


	50. Chapter 49

Chapter Forty-Nine:

The conversation after White Crow's departure was a bit worse that I foresaw. The vampire girl could be quite tenacious when she has made up her mind.

"I mean it this time, Angel," I was saying. "I will have Gary come over and physically sit right on top of you as a wolf if I have to. You _are_ going to stay out of this one."

"But I can help," she repeated for the tenth time stubbornly. "You've been teaching me."

"No, you can't," I replied bluntly. "I've been teaching you to fight. Fighting is the last ditch skill the Shinobi use when everything on the mission has gone wrong and they are discovered. Stealth is what's needed in this case, and you haven't been learning those types of skills."

"I can sneak around just fine!" she nearly shouted.

"Around humans and get away with it, yes," I replied. "But you're not good enough to get away with it around vampires… I'm sorry."

She glared at me with a deep unpleasant frown. I could tell I wasn't breaching her stubbornness in the least.

"Look! You've never done this sort of thing before," I continued. "You won't know what you're doing. And I am not going to be just handing you over to them if this goes all wrong."

She then pointed a finger at my chest.

"I told you never to ask me stay behind again!" she snapped.

"I'm not. This time I am _telling_ you to stay behind."

"You can't decide that for me!"

I stepped forward suddenly and took her by the shoulders in a grip so firm it surprised even her.

"Yes, I can!" I snapped back, just as bullheaded as she was now. My fangs began to poke downward in my worry and agitation. She could have broken away from me anytime she chose, but she just turned her face away from me to make a point about how angry she was.

"Look at me, Angel. Look at me!" I shook her until she did.

"I'm a killer, Angel. Specifically a killer of your kind," I said the hurtful words, not sure who I was harming the most with them, her or me? "I'm the most successful, most feared, and the most despised assassin of vampires that there ever was… that's because I was good at it. I've had decades of training and experience in these things that you haven't. There are places I can go, places that I've been… that you can't go. And there are things that I can do and things that I've done that I don't want you being a part of if I can help it.

"This won't be like a wide opened park with plenty of room to maneuver. Space to move and ways of escape will be very limited, and even one small amateurish mistake will get both you and me killed. If this goes bad… it's going to be fast, it's going to be bloody, and there is not going to be any margin for error at all."

She glared lightly at me, and I tried not to feel as if I was belittling her, but I had no choice but to give her the blunt truth of the matter for both our own goods.

"If you're not safe, then you distract me," I continued on, daring now to state the most important reason I didn't want her coming with me. "If I lose you, then me doing all this again is for nothing! Do you understand? If you want to help me, then I _need_ for you to keep yourself safe, because I _need_ you to come back to. I have to have you to get through the torture of bringing this part of my life back again. I need to know that there is something waiting for me back here that makes it all worth it."

All the emotion drained from her features, and Angel stared blankly at my chest for a moment now, A few seconds later she then looked up at me with heavy eyes. Her lower lips trembled slightly.

"But… I _need_ to know that you're safe too," she said quietly.

"Then wait here and give me a reason to keep myself safe," I replied, just as quietly.

"You… you can't guarantee that," said Angel next.

I shook my head lightly.

"I'm not going to lie to you… no. No, I can't," I said. "But seeing your face again is a hell of a incentive to get my ass out alive. You have to give yourself that much credit."

I was trying to play it light, and she did crack a tiny smile at least.

"It probably won't be a very happy face with all the worrying I'll do."

I grinned a little bit, if the girl only knew.

"I'd take that face any day of the week," I told her.

Angel slowly nodded her head, and then moved in to wrap her arms around me. A few seconds later she closed her eyes and rested her head against my chest as well. I noticed that she purposely placed her ear over my heart.

"I hate you, you know that don't you?" she eventually murmured against me.

I smiled at the old game, and buried my hand into the hair at the back of her head as I held her.

"I love you too," I said back to her, looking down at her elfin face.

She paused a moment, only to roll her head the other way out of my view.

"Asshole," I heard her mutter a few seconds later.

I was so stunned to hear her utter the cuss word that I paused briefly myself, and then began to chuckle. In my arms, Angel began to shake slightly, and I realized she was joining me in the unexpected amusement.

"I promise," she said a moment later, and I'd never been more relieved to hear just two words before. "This time I mean it. I learned my lesson at the park… and you're right, I should have faith in the things I've seen you do. I'll stay home this time and not move until you come back. I'll be pulling my hair out the entire time you're gone… but I'll stay put."

I smiled. "Thank you," I said to her.

Her lips suddenly pursed. "There is one other condition I want to add to my promise though," she suddenly added.

"_Uh-oh!"_ I thought silently, and then cursed myself for thinking it was going to be this easy with this little imp.

"What might that one condition be?" I asked pensively.

"You have to teach me how to sneak into places like you do too," she revealed. "You're not going to keep having all the fun forever while I sit home waiting like the good human wife on all the old TV shows."

I almost heaved a huge sigh of relief that I had gotten off so lightly after all.

Angel took my expression to be one of aspiration and added, "Take or leave it, bucko. I gave in on this, so now you owe me."

"Okay, of course," I agreed. "We can start adding some of the basics of Chikairi-no-jutsu into your lessons next time."

"Yeah! I want to learn Cheeky no whatever," Angel said now with a small grin. "I think you make up these names just to confuse me."

"That would be Kuji-kiri," I said, with a bit of an uncontrolled smirk.

Angel twisted up her pretty lips at me again, and then her features suddenly turned all serious once more.

"Did I remember to tell you today… that you were a bit of an asshole?" she asked.


	51. Chapter 50

Chapter Fifty:

I was fairly certain that the overly pretty door at the end of the hallway was going to turn out to be the one leading to Martino's office. If the elaborate carvings in the door's surface wouldn't have been such a obvious clue, then the big burly vamp standing guard outside of it would have been just as good as a big neon sign saying, "Martino's In Here."

Even from where I currently was down the hall and around a corner, I could hear something classical playing on a sound system inside the office.

The building had been relatively easy to penetrate thus far without sounding an alarm or being seen. The art of Chikairi-no-jutsu – as I mentioned to Angel earlier, or the ninjutsu art of infiltration, had served me as well today as it did half a lifetime ago.

Even so, the initial entry point had required me to scale the outside of the building and enter through a small attic window. After jumping the alarm switch on the window's frame while suspended five stories above the ground, and bypassing the pressure sensitive mat on the floor just inside, the rest had been a relative piece of cake.

But this last thirty feet of open hall was going be tricky, mostly because there was nowhere to slink and hide.

So in that case, the best course of action was to adapt Kyojutsu, the art of doing the unexpected, and then try the direct approach.

I pulled one of my favorite sneaky toys from my coat pocket, and rounded that last corner at a casual stroll, as if I had every right in the world to be there. As one of my instructors in Japan had been fond of saying, "When in doubt, act like you belong."

With that bit of advice in mind, I didn't make an effort to silence my footsteps… besides; I was in plain view anyway in the well-lit hallway. The leather tails of my Outback Coat slapped against the back of my calves like a drum beat that was in time with each step I took… nothing like having your own soundtrack when you're on the way to doing something so crazy it borders on purely brainless.

The guard vamp saw me almost immediately of course, and came to attention before stepping into the middle of the hallway to block it with his massive frame… and man, was he big! Looking at him wasn't the first time today that I wished my new sword were finished.

I just smiled, and kept walking toward him at that careless pace.

I came to a jerky halt in front of him, less than three-feet away. Once there I folded my hands politely together in front of me at belt level and regarded him silently, still with that dim-witted smile on my face.

His eyes narrowed as he glared down at me with his thick arms across his barrel chest. I knew he was waiting for me to explain my presences there, and was probably wondering how a human had made it so far inside Martino's headquarters, but I could wait until he couldn't stand the suspense anymore… which I knew wouldn't be all that long.

After about a minute of us staring at each other, my dumb grin must have finally gotten on his nerves, because he broke first just like I knew he would.

"Who the _friggin' _hell are you?" he asked roughly.

I imagine at this point he might have thought I had some permission or legitimate reason to be there, as many covens had human flunkies to do their grunt work. So he was reluctant to react rashly just yet in case I belonged to somebody important.

I let my features go all innocent-like.

"Why… I'm the Domino's Pizza Noid," I said with a straight face. "Don't you recognize me?"

He shook his bullet-shaped baldhead as if he hadn't heard me correctly.

"The… _what_?" he wanted to know. Then he began to look at me like I was an idiot.

Now that just went and annoyed me. I hated when people just don't remember the classic TV commercial icons of the mid-80's, so I decided to introduce him to my favorite toy as chastisement for his lack of nostalgic taste.

I rolled my eyes as if he were the stupid one and said, "What is it with you gimp Martino vamps? Are you all inbred or something that you don't remember 'the Noid'?"

Now that _pissed_ him off but good, which is pretty much the effect I was going for.

"Why you little…" he started to say as he cocked a meaty fist back in preparation of throwing a punch that would probably leave a big hole in me somewhere.

I didn't give him a chance to throw it. As soon as I seen his arm chamber, I flicked what was in my hand at his face like I was snapping a wet towel.

The three-inch steel weight at the end of the chain smashed into the guard's left eye, making him forget about punching me for a few seconds. My favorite toy was what's known as a Kusari Fundo, its beautiful in its simplicity, being basically two three-inch steel weights connected together by about twenty-five inches of steel chain. It's a straightforward and interesting weapon, and you can do all sorts of nasty things with a weighted length of chain.

You can deflect blows with it; monetarily blind your opponent with it like I just did, you can trap or bind limbs with it, choke an opponent out, and most importantly – if used correctly, you can break things with it.

A lot of things.

As soon as I popped him in the eyeball, the vamp's head rocked back and he brought up one hand to cover and protected his abused orb. That left his throat wide open, and I spared not a split-second in sending in a shuto chop with the blade of my hand to wreck his voice box.

Didn't want him waking the neighbors up, don't you know?

The fact that he was slightly taller than I was turned out to work in my favor, as next I twirled the chain around his neck in a loop as I slid in behind him, going back-to-back. Once I was inside his center of balance, I simply dropped my weight as I went to kneel down on one knee, and at the same time yanked hard on the Fundo, using the weights at the ends of the chain as handles.

The result was the bigger vamp went sailing over my back… but I wasn't quite done with him yet. As I felt the weight on the chain ends start to go slack, I pulled up hard on them.

His neck bones sounded like tiny gunshots as they snapped just before he hit the floor. The thick expensive carpeting on the wooden floors muffled the thump of his body surprisingly well.

That particular move would have kill a human being outright, but not a vamp. It did however work to do the old 'disconnects the brain from the body' trick… at least until they healed themselves. The amount of shattered bone and damaged this caused to the neck vertebra assured me that it would be a least an hour before they were mended enough for the guard to regain control of his body.

Normally, I didn't give them time to get all fixed up, but this was a special circumstance. I didn't want to overly annoy Martino by killing the hired help unless I really had to, and only then just to get my line of reasoning across. Wiping out his coven wasn't on the agenda for today… unless it was my only way out of here in the end.

And I had to say, breaking into a vampire's lair without the intension of leaving everyone I find there dead behind me, sure made the task that much more challenging!

I figured that besides the music playing, that the office door was probably several inches thick, and the room was probably as close to sound proof as they could make it as well, to keep whatever secrets the coven leader discussed safe within it. Considering that nearly every person in the building was going to be a vampire with super hearing. So there most likely was little chance whoever was inside the office heard the tiny scuffle out here.

I picked up the guard by the back of his neck; ignoring the odd angle his head rolled at, and also took a hold of him by his thick belt. I was thinking he'd make a great shield just in case it turned out I was out-numbered in there, and then went to say, 'hello'.

I kept a hold of the discombobulated vamp, as I smashed in the office's heavy wooden door with one armored boot. The door exploded inward quite dramatically on the first try, just like in the movies… I was very impressed with the results myself.

Well… if I was restraining myself from killing vampires, at least I could still break things, right? This kind of work did call for some type of stress management after all.

I entered the office without waiting, still holding the sentry vamp before me. Another older-looking vampire dressed in an expensive custom-fitted suit was sitting behind a huge desk. He merely glanced up at my entrance as if he were use to having strangers kicking in his door every day.

And for all I knew, it just might have been a daily occurrence in the vamp's life.

Still, the empty look on his face plainly told me he wasn't as impressed with my grand entrance as I was.

A disappointing pity… but what can you do? You don't actually get too many points for showmanship when you're fighting the undead anyway.

I casually dropped the guard with the broken neck to the floor when I saw there was only the single occupant in the room; figuring I wouldn't need him as a shield after all. I gave the head bloodsucker that I had gone through all this trouble of coming to see my best bright and shiny smile.

The vamp only response was to reach over and casually turn off the stereo playing the music. He then continued to regard me with blank eyes.

The unlucky sentry let out a rattle-like groan as hitting the floor drove up what air remained in his lungs. That finally got a reaction from the old guy, if only a curious raised eyebrow from the vamp behind the desk.

"You only broke his neck?" he asked me levelly, but with a hint of mild inquisitiveness. The old vamp could probably hear my slow heartbeat from where he was now, and thought I was just a human, and he had to be wondering in that case how I accomplished that feat in the first place. I don't have the vamp scent or eyes, so I use to get that a lot years ago and I was always sure to use their confusion to my advantage.

I did however bet with myself that if I never answered him, the curiosity alone would probably eventually kill him.

"Just a little bit. He'll get over it," I said in reply instead.

"I doubt that you accomplished that feat all on your own, human. How many are with you?" He leaned in his seat a bit to try and peer pass me and through the broken doorway.

"Just little old me. I don't like a huge audience when I work," I told him.

The coven leader looked a little cynical of my claim.

"If you could take out my guard without help as you say, why not just simply kill him?"

"Well, I didn't want to start off on the wrong foot by needlessly roughing up the help," I replied truthfully, but also somewhat flippantly. Sometimes it paid to keep them guessing if you were sane or not… which wasn't hard to pull off, as sometimes I had to wonder about that myself.

The older vamp pursed his thin lips together tightly for a moment before continuing.

"I'm afraid you've already done that. You have me slightly curious for the moment, which is why you weren't dead a second after you entered this office. But you have made a grievous mistake by just coming here and barging your way in, my friend. Of that have no doubt," he finally said as he carefully set aside a gold pen that probably cost several hundred dollars.

He looked me over like I was a petty annoyance at best. I was somewhat use to that too.

My smile grew even larger at the "my friend" part of his speech though, mostly because it was obvious by his tone that he didn't mean it literally, and partly because, well… I was in fact a little bit crazy anyway.

I had to be. Why else would I be doing something so ludicrous?

"Really?" I asked with no outward concern while moving into the room. "I tend to do that a lot."

"You also destroyed my door. It came all the way from Italy," Martino continued.

"Did it?" I inquired. "Well, its kind of gaudy so you should send it back. Besides… I had to break something besides the guard. Otherwise you might not take me seriously," I added, my leather Outback Duster flapping behind me as I moved to the front of the immense desk. I noticed his eyes taking in the polycarbonate riot armor I wore underneath of it, and could see he wondering what I was all about.

"I know… it's a little early for Halloween," I said.

The bloodsucker snorted. "That thought had crossed my mind."

Good, make them curious and keep them that way… maybe I'll pull this off and get to keep my head.

"We need to talk," I said next.

"Oh?" replied Martino. "You really _are_ pretentious, my friend."

I grinned.

"I know, my parents just didn't give me enough attention when I was growing up," I replied.

I could see that he was still slightly amused, but really only pausing long enough to decide how many of my bones he was going to break before finally ripping my throat out.

I had a few seconds left to me yet.

Yippee!

"Would you mind very much, enlightening me on how you got in here?"

I smiled.

"No… I don't think I will."

Martino gave me a sour look. He wasn't use to people, or other vampires, telling him no.

"Okay, I came down the chimney," I quipped.

Martino raised an eyebrow at that. "You're very funny, my odd friend," he said dryly.

"Ho-ho-ho…" I said, and then added an explanative that had something to do with him having sexual relations with his mother, just for spice.

"And you are also pitifully droll at the same time," he added with a new frown, to which my grin grew a smidge brighter.

"So you've seen the original 'Die Hard'? One of my favorite movies."

"Human… you must be mad," he said with a grimace.

I chose to leave the comment unanswered, and ran a few fingertips across the dark polished wood of his desktop as if admiring it.

I then rapped it a few times to listen to the tone the wood made. Yeah, very expensive I concluded. As a bass player, we're very attuned to the tones in certain woods.

He was going to be very ticked off when I wrecked the desk too!

"What a big piece of impersonal furniture you have," I continued, regarding the heavily carved wooden desk that separated us. "You really go in for the big, heavy, expensive stuff, don't you?"

I smiled back up at him, and before he could respond I made a standing leap up onto the top of it. I used my foot to sweep aside several stacks of paper and other items that separated us, before taking one more step toward the vamp across the desktop, and then squatting down till our faces were almost on the same level. If he thought I was annoying before, I wondered how he liked me now?

"Isn't this much better? More cozy? Doesn't this make the ebb and flow of ideas between two fellows much easier?" I asked with an inquiring tilt of my head.

Most people try to distance themselves from vampires when they realize the danger, not move closer to them. He hadn't expected me to do something so brass, but that's what I'm all about – shock and awe.

"You are about to die," he informed me bluntly a few seconds later when he finally found his tongue again through his outrage. He was really well on his way to being pissed now.

Yeah, I'm all about pissing vampires off too. Everyone has to have a hobby.

"I don't think so, blood-tick," I replied cheerfully, using pet names and pouring on the charm. "Not until we have out little chat."

Martino was taken aback for an instant; this was just all too strange to a vamp as old as he was.

He was mad, that was for certain; I just kicked over several hours of paperwork probably. But he couldn't help but be a bit inquisitive about just what kind of madman had walked into his lair. He wasn't use to suicidal mortals bearding him in his own den.

"Before I slowly dismember you, do you mind telling me… just who the Hades you are?" he finally asked out right.

"I thought you'd never ask."

Before he could move, I reached behind me and under my opened coat to draw the folding short sword from its inverted back scabbard. I was reasonably sure that my inhuman speed hadn't escaped his notice, but I didn't exactly give him a chance to comment on it either. Instead I went right to making my point… or rather, showing it to him.

I didn't bother flicking the folding blade all the way opened, as it still had a good fourteen inches of razor sharp steel available for immediate use. The convert sword was made of the same folded steel I made my battle swords from, and thus would cut through a vampire just as easily as one of my old shinobi blades would.

Instead of hacking into the vampire, in the blink of an eye, I buried the point a half-inch deep into the pristine glossy surface of his desktop right between us, with the mirror-like flat of the blade facing him.

That really made him very, very, angry… just as I suspected it was going to.

Angry enough that it took Martino a few seconds to notice the iconic Kanji characters etched into the flat of the blade, characters that had been my calling card over half a century ago when I had slaughtered vampires by the hundreds.

His face went from fierce and ready to explode, to one of bewilderment for a second, then to one of great amusement the next.

In fact he was so amused, he seemed to forget he was about to kill me for ruining his antique desk. And I was relatively positive that ripping my head off in punishment for the vandalism was number one on the list. Well, at least for the moment he'd forgotten about it.

That was good then; I might not have to try and kill him just yet either.


	52. Chapter 51

Chapter Fifty-One:

Martino suddenly laughed out loud in a deep chuckled for a moment, and then settled back in his chair, making the blood-red leather creak with his weight, he steepled his hands in front of him as he regarded me with eyes that had turned black by now.

"Well, you've certainly amused me, and broken up what was until now a very dull day," he finally said, as if addressing a child or a dim-witted adult… and yeah, that last part pretty much fit me at the moment. Nobody who had all his or her marbles would be doing something like this.

I've done a real lot of un-smart things in my long life, and this pretty much sat somewhere at the top of the list.

"You're extremely fast for a human, I'll give you that much. And I know whom you want me to believe you are," the coven leader continued. "But I very much doubt you could be him."

"Are you real sure about that?" I asked with a tiny smug grin.

"I saw a blade similar to the one once. It sat for awhile as a trophy in the halls of some acquaintances of mine."

"I have a lot of them," I replied with a shrug.

Martino shook his head in doubt.

"I doubt that it could be the real thing."

I smiled a bit more, and pushed down slightly on the blade. The tip sank another half-an-inch into the desktop as if it were paper. Martino licked his lips, and did his best not to appear overly concerned. He didn't want to believe just yet.

"Besides, that cursed bastard was wiped out in the late-fifties by minions of a certain… powerful organization," Martino said with returning confidence. "And if he were alive today, he would be well over a hundred years old, and my friend, that you obviously are not! Humans… don't age very well."

It was my turn to laugh, and I took a slight unbalanced pleasure in it as I did.

My amusement didn't sit too well with the old guy.

"And even if you were this person… my coven has a serious grievance with this individual. He would not be so foolish as to simply just waltz in here."

_Don't bet on it_, I silently thought to myself.

"We'll get to that," I promised him. "But as far as my reported demise… I wiped out hundreds, if not a few thousands, of you parasites over the years. And none of you, including a number of Volturi 'cleaners' could find me, let alone stop me. Did you really believe that a few local peons that the Volturi send after me as chastisement were going to fair any better, where their 'so-called expert hunters' failed?

"I disappeared solely because I wanted to. Killing you ticks had become just too damn easy, and it got boring after a few decades… there was no more challenge in it. Plus, I thought it be a real kick in the Volturi's collective ass if they thought some nobodies they believed they were sending to their deaths were actually able to do what they couldn't. Don't you find that as hysterically funny as I do, Benito? I hear you don't have much reason to like Aro and his playmates, so why wouldn't you find that amusing?

"And whatever gave you the notion that I was human?"

Martino scowled at all that commentary. "Rubbish!" he growled lowly.

He probably wasn't very happy that what he still perceived as a lowly human could possibly know of the existence of the clandestine Volturi ruling class either. I was just making a total mess of his day!

"I don't know how or where you come by your information, my friend. But the Volturi are not an institution that a mere human would wish to trifle with… let alone admit they have any knowledge of. You're playing a very stupid and fatal game. One that you're about to lose."

"You mean that same _scary_ organization that wouldn't be too happy to learn about the cozy little operation you have going on here, Benito? Not too low profile if you ask me, having a big old vampire war in the streets of a major city like Seattle, is it?

"And I mean for what purpose? Seeing that the Volturi are just going to show up one day and take it all back for themselves anyway. Isn't that why acquiring more territory than is allowed is against the big golden rule the Volturi set? You know, that rule you're suppose to be following like good little minions?" I asked innocently.

I kept what I knew about his involvement with the Illuminati to myself for the moment. I thought it wise that Martino didn't know I held that card just yet if I could avoid it.

I had countered his remarks with the right information like a good fencer, and Benito Martino didn't like that, not at all.

"Who the hell are you?" he clearly growled at me now. He was almost done playing this game now.

"I told you who I was," I said with a smirk.

"Bullshit!"

The smile on my face died. I guess I had finally gotten on the old vamp's last nerve, but there was no need to be rude!

I opened the last three fingers holding the handle of my sword, and something bright rattled and clinked its way down the blade as it was released.

It hit the desk top with a dull metallic thud.

Martino looked down at the shiny object that was my second ace-in-the-hole, it took him only a second to recognize the medallion resting on the top of his desk, it's heavy gold chain snaking around and pinned to the desk by my very sharp sword blade.

"Mia'!" he exclaimed as the relic registered.

"I'm death freakin' incarnate, Benito. Death for you and every other vampire that's ever pissed me off," I growled in answer to his question. "Hope you guess my name…" I added in a sudden singsong voice, not being able to help but toss a little bit of the Rolling Stones into the discussion.

He didn't bother replying for the moment, the medallion had become the focus of his entire world.

His hand began to involuntarily reach slowly for the medal as if it might turn to smoke if he reached to quickly for it; in response I twisted the sword with a quick jerk of my wrist so that its cutting edge now faced him in warning. The antique wood of the desktop cracked like a gunshot as the tip of the blade tore out a chunk of it to make the adjustment.

You would think the old vamp would protest the further damage to his expensive furniture, but he only had eyes or a care for what was secured beneath my blade. Martino also understood that if he touched the medallion without my permission… there would be a swift and deadly penalty. He just as quickly withdrew his reaching hand safely back.

My smile now was not so friendly as before. It was time for me to stop playing the fool and become a bit more of the monster I was once known as.

"My gods! Only one accursed being would have possession of that medallion. It is really you after all these years!" he said, finally looking back at me, "You _are_ Lucifer, himself."

I almost chuckled at hearing the old nickname some of the covens in the old days had saddled me with spoken out loud. It was much more imaginative than some of the alias I'd thought up for myself.

But I did manage to keep my twisted mirth bottled up. It wouldn't do to wreck the hard-ass image I was working so hard to maintain now, would it? Seeing the old bloodsucker was finally taking me seriously.

I suppose it had only been reasonable that the vamps in those days would think of a 'human' hunter and slayer of vampires, who seemed un-killable and unstoppable, as the devil himself.

Most of their egos wouldn't allow for them to admit a mere human could possibly be preying on them, let alone alluding them for almost fifty years. It just didn't fit into their view of the world and their place in it. Therefore, whatever was hunting them had to be somewhat higher on the supernatural cosmic scale than they were.

Vampire Psychology: one-oh-one.

However, what bought Martino's instant belief in my former identity wasn't old superstition, or my ingenious and beautifully made sword, nor my cleverly annoying wit… it was the old medallion and only the medallion.

It was the original crest of Martino's coven, wore by its founder and Benito's maker, Castillo Montimori. It was the signet of their power and ancient bloodlines going back to the old country among the other larger and more important covens of the world. You had to have the shiny medal bling to keep your membership in that exclusive little club. Lose it, and you're nothing but common vamp pond scum to the higher castes.

And Martino's coven medallion had been lost for over eighty years now.

Well, not lost really… I took it from the stump of Castillo's neck after I removed his head… just before I burned his mansion down around his slightly dismembered, but still thrashing, corpse.

I remember… that had been one of my finer days.

I've been keeping the metal as a trophy ever since, seeing that heads were a bit messy, and vampire heads tended to live on after being removed. It would have been just too creepy having Castillo's blinking eyes staring down over me from my fireplace mantle, so I just burned his body afterwards to make sure he wouldn't come back and kept the big pendant instead.

It was much cleaner that way and less explaining to do to any potential houseguests.

Benito Martino had been older for a human when he was turned, but still young for a vampire back then, and he was also Montimori's second in command here in the states. He knew for a fact that only the one called Lucifer could possibly have the symbol of his coven's heritage.

I had followed Montimori back to the States from Volterra, Italy, catching up to him just as he arrived back at his main lair in Portland. I gave him a welcome home like he never expected.

Luckier still for Benito, was that he had been elsewhere on some errand for Castillo when I went through his master's home, otherwise he would have joined the several other vampires that died with Montimori that night, and burned on the makeshift funnel pyre the mansion had become.

I wasn't going to remind him of that bit of ancient history right now, at least not yet. I was pretty sure he already recalled enough of it on his own without any help from me.

Anyway, I could always point out that if not for me, he wouldn't be in the position of power he was in right now.

However, his current power and status wasn't what it could have been. Without the coven's signet medallion, the other covens hadn't recognized Martino's group in the inner counsel circles for almost a century.

Yeah, he wanted it back… he wanted it back badly enough to sit up and bark like a dog if I told him to.

Which is what I had been counting on.

"I don't understand? How could this be? You're supposed to be dead, so why would you come back if everyone believed you were? Castillo's medallion was thought lost forever with you," he went on.

"I got bored with the easy life too," I said with a cold smile. "And you know you shouldn't believe everything you hear from politicians… or the Volturi."

"What do you want? You came here for a reason."

Good… he was willing to contemplate a deal… for now.

"I want to reach a compromise," I answered. "Specifically with you."

"About what," Martino asked suspiciously.

Now was the hard part, maybe… depending exactly on just how bad Benito wanted his bling-bling back. I was hoping it was worth more to him than whatever he was doing here in Seattle under the Volturi radar for the Illuminati.

"There was a incident on the Westside a few weeks ago on a Saturday night," I started. "One of your associates got himself decapitated in a rather gruesome manner behind a nightclub."

The older vamps eyes narrowed.

"I may recall something of that nature being reported to me," he vaguely admitted. "One of our… _contractor_ groups, I believe it was, ran into some difficulty with a coven that was trespassing in our territory."

"Contractors?" I repeated snidely with a lifted eyebrow. "Is that what you call them now-a-days?"

He ignored my comment; I didn't even bother pointing out his other embellishment. We had already discussed that no one coven held major official territory in Seattle. Everyone knew it was basically a Volturi declared no-man's land, which is one reason why I chose to hang out here.

I had always thought the Volturi had made that particular directive because the area had some of the best weather on the continent for vampires to be active in without detection from humans. Or perhaps that they had some future plans for the city and wished to keep it open for their own take-over.

For the time being, I didn't much care and always thought I'd cross that bridge when the Volturi rolled into town to stay.

"I believe there was a problem with our associate being attacked by a female immortal. That one got away I'm told, but my people are endeavoring to locate her now even as we speak," Martino finished. "Why should this matter at all to you?" he wanted to know.

The fact that he mentioned only Angel getting away from his people didn't escape me. He made no reference of her other friends that had to have been with her that night escaping as well, which led me to believe they had been all killed by the Rogues in the attack.

I did my best to not let it show on my face that the fact had registered at all, it wouldn't be in my or the girl's best interest to give Martino that sort of an edge. I then ignored his question and pressed on with the real reason I had taken such an imprudent chance in coming to see him in his own nest.

"She attacked?" I repeated in contempt for the bald-faced lie. "You think a little thing like this girl just decided out of the blue to _attack_ a pack of your hired thugs, and vampire hunters at that? Come on, Benito. That's kind of a thin stretch for even you to try and peddle."

Martino sighed dramatically and spread his arms to indicate he was practically helpless in the matter.

"That is what was recounted to me by my people, so that is all I know about the incident, my friend."

I rolled my eyes. "You know damned well, that your Rogues ambushed her… following your orders to clean out every vamp they come across that doesn't answer to you."

"I protest! That is a vicious rumor, and is totally untrue. I conduct my business here under Volturi law just as all the other covens in Seattle do," he said in an innocent tone, but the slight smile on his face was anything but guiltless. If he were human, he would have made a great politician.

And I still would have disliked him just as much.

"Right," I replied, making my doubt clear.

"That is my final word on the matter," he finished, with an even slicker insincere grin.

I was getting nowhere trying to have a straightforward conversation with the vamp about his less than approved activities, so I tried a new approach.

"Okay, so your position is you know nothing about what the Rogues are actually doing in the city?"

"That is what I said. I know of only those who I've contracted for business purposes to safeguard the few minor properties the Volturi allow my coven to hold in the city. I have no knowledge of any 'Rogue' fractions within Seattle, as by law, I would be required to exterminate them if I did."

"All right, might we speak in hypothetical terms from here on in?" I asked.

"By all means," Martino replied. "As long as our conversation remains… hypothetical."

I nodded in agreement; I was beginning to feel like a greasy politician myself with all this circle talk.

"So hypothetically speaking… if there were Rogues working here in Seattle with a coven's knowledge and permission… for hypothetical sake, let's use your coven as an example."

"As you wish."

"So suppose… these Rogues attacked an outside coven, and one of the members, a girl, kills one of the Rogues."

"Then the Rogues would be seeking revenge, and their patron would be traditionally obligated to assist them in this matter any way possible… that is if he, or she, wished to stay in power over the other coven members. One does not stay in control of a coven the size of mine if they appeared weak and unable to offer protection to his followers… or employees."

"Okay, so what if hypothetically, that's why I'm here," I informed him.

"Really?" he replied. He was leaning toward me, very interested now in our little faux negotiation. "I would be _hypothetically_ interested in finding out why?"

"What if this girl didn't kill your Rogue… I did?" I laid it all out on the table, making no mistake and calling the vamp I killed what he was, so there would be no doubt where either of us stood at the moment.

Martino wouldn't want the Volturi or other covens to acquire proof that he was hiring Rogues to police his illegally claimed territory in Seattle. I really didn't want the other covens or Volturi to find out I still existed.

Stalemate!

"I don't think that such a circumstance as you describe could in theory exist, as it's not possible for a dead man to kill anyone," he said with a sly grin.

"Not amusing, Benito," I said, with a displeased grimace.

He spread his hands in a '_what can I say?'_ gesture.

"Regardless, the employed coven in question would not believe a supposedly deceased assassin killed their clan mate… nor would their employer. The girl would still be held responsible by them for the death."

"So using your logic, I could take your head right now, and no one would be to blame?" I countered. He didn't like that _hypothetical_ situation much at all, judging by the frown that graced his face.

"I think we've stepped beyond the realm of the hypothetical now, my new friend," Martino said with a flat serious look. "And that could get to be very dangerous."

"Look, Martino… I don't care why you brought them in; it's not my problem as long as you limit your activities to killing each other… and most importantly, leave me alone. Your hired _man_ ran into me Saturday night while chasing the girl. And he was stupid enough to chose to try his luck with me as well, then lost his head as a result… end of the story," I added before he could ask why I became involved.

"Is that so?" Benito pondered. "So you are saying, you were left with no option but to kill him?"

"Yes, that's what I'm saying… and I'm _very_ pissed off by the whole situation," I said. "Your little power play has disrupted my currently-up-till-now, dull and uneventful life, and that's what's led up to our little momentary chitchat."

Martino look at me for a minute, then said. "I understand your discontent. So what would you have of me?"

"I propose a private trade between us," I informed him. "You rescind the death warrant you have on the girl. Promise me you and your people will leave us in peace… and I'll return Montimori's crest to you, and you and your coven will never be bothered by either one of us again. We disappear off the face of the Earth as far as you're concerned."

"Why are you so concerned about an immortal girl?" Benito asked. "That seems to go against your prior _modus operandi_."

"Not your concern, Martino."

"What is she to you? A play toy perhaps? Have you taken up with her? That concept I find very intriguing."

"I'm beginning the think I may need to make an addition to my collection of vampire heads."

I fiddled slightly with the handle of the sword to remind him of how close it was to his neck.

"Very well. Keep your secrets… for the moment," he said with a thin smile. I could tell he wasn't finished with the topic just yet.

"That would be healthier for you," I advised, hoping he'd take the hint and drop the subject anyway. "Do we have an arrangement or what?"


	53. Chapter 52

Chapter Fifty-Two:

The old vamp regarded me with slick beady eyes; the bastard was going to see what else he could wheedle out of me next.

Greedy son-of-a leech!

"For the death of so valued a employee, I'm not sure that's a very good trade on my part. As I already pointed out, what kind of signal would I be sending to my people and the other covens in the area if I let a trespasser just kill one of my people without consequences? Even if he was just a lowly contractor?"

"If you feel that way about it," I responded just as stubbornly. "Then I suppose I could just melt this piece of tin down and make an ashtray out of it. I've always wanted to take up smoking."

Martino snorted at that.

"You're forgetting, my interesting companion. You're in the heart of my home at the moment. I could just simply call my people in and take the medallion from you. I really have no need to compromise with you on anything when you get right down to the facts of the matter."

I leaned forward myself now and stared him straight in the face. I felt my fangs slid down into place at the threat. My finger nails changed into claws. My free hand had been laying on top of his desk as I crouched there, and I clenched my fingers without thinking, leaving four long scores in the desktop.

"Go ahead and try it, Benito. I hope you got your successor already picked out, because you're the first one I'll kill in that event," I offered with a new toothy smile, which really wasn't a smile.

I made a show of flexing my now hard-tipped fingers that were on the sword handle, as if they already itched to take a swipe at him with either claw or blade. The gesture also made the leather of my fingerless gloves creak, reminding him that I was in fact close enough to remove his head in an eye blink if I were of a mind to.

He baulked more at the bizarre show of fangs than at the reminder of the blade being so close, pulling his face away from mine. He hadn't been expecting that little demonstration of weirdness, and I suspect as soon as I left there he was going to have someone looking up my condition to figure out what I was exactly.

"No… you're not human at all, are you?" he muttered.

If the vampire was actually expecting me to answer his question, he was gravely disappointed. I merely just stared at him; waiting for him to decide which route he was going to take in this… and letting my silence tell him I was prepared to go either way once he made his choice.

Letting slip a bit of my secret couldn't be helped. I need everything at my disposal to bargain with him now if Angel and I were going to get out of this relatively unscathed.

If it helped keep Martino off balance and unsure about _what_ he was dealing with, and _where_ exactly he stood in this pact I was trying to strike with him, it would be well worth the sacrifice.

"You are right of course. I was merely exploring all my options. It's only good business."

The ends of my lips lifted coldly, exposing the tips of my canines. "You'll live longer if you exploded a lot less," I told him.

"My mistake, what was I thinking? Your offer upon reflection is certainly fair," he recovered quickly, now he smiled as if it all had been a simple misunderstanding instead of an outright threat. "We can settle this and reach an agreement like reasonable gentlemen."

"Glad you concur," I said, my eyeteeth drawing back upward. Damn! I hated the way that felt! It seemed to be worse whenever I was agitated even slightly.

But I was glad Benito had wisely backed down. I might have been able to kill him, but getting myself out alive after offing this coven's boss would have been a crapshoot at best.

I was at a serious disadvantage not knowing exactly how many vampire currently occupied the place, or how close any of them might be on the lower floors… as I had made my way in from the roof after finding that route to be the weakest link in the property's defenses.

"However, as we are no longer speaking hypothetically, there is a small concern about that organization I spoke about earlier. If I remember correctly, there was a considerable price on your head for certain, shall we say… indiscreet activities on your part. The Volturi would not be too please to learn that you were still alive, let alone that I was doing business with you."

I smirked; wondering how much less pleased the Volturi would be if they knew Martino was in bed with Illuminati as well?

"You mean all the vampire ticks I killed? No, there was nothing about that that was meant to be discreet in any way. I pretty much wanted all of you to know about it."

"Yes, still… it is a issue we must address before we finalize any arrangement," Martino continued, he looked very uncomfortable now for a change.

Good, that told me he was being sincere… for now at least.

"I'll tell you what. You don't tell the Volturi about me, I wouldn't tell them about you if I happen to run into them. And if I do run into any of them, I think its safe to assume I'll be too busy trying to kill them for idle chat," I said. "You can think up whatever story you'd like to fed them about how you recovered the medallion. I don't care."

Martino nodded his gray haired head. "You realize, if we go through with this pact and you renege at any point down the road, I will have you hunted down and killed for real this time. Also the girl's life will be forfeit as well as a result. My people will find her even if I am dead, and when they find her they will not only kill her, but all that are with her. Is that clear?"

"Yeah, that's clear," I told him. "Don't think those very same conditions don't go for you also."

Martino snorted at the last comment.

"Don't laugh, Benito," I said coldly. "Remember what happened the last time I walked through your maker's house. The very fact that I'm here right now should tell you that I can do it all again."

I leaned forward a bit to get closer to his face again, nothing helps make your point better than invading somebody's personal space. Vampires especially hate that. "I have done it more times than you will ever know." The less than subtle reminder about his maker's fate didn't go unheeded.

His face immediately straightened. "Of course," he said, and though I could tell he was a little less than completely sincere. I let it go because it was the best I was going to get with the old bloodsucker.

"So we have a deal… and an understanding?" I asked, drawing back to my prior distance from him. I didn't particularly like being that close to the bastard either.

"As long as I have your word, the terms are acceptable," he replied.

"Agreed," I added with a hard glare. I didn't bother asking him for his word, because I knew it wouldn't be worth the air he wasted to speak it.

I trusted more in the fact that we both sort of had metaphoric loaded guns pointed at each other's heads for the moment.

"I will immediately call off my people on the girl. Those of my coven will comply, as will most of my loyal contractors," he told me. "However," he said with one upraised finger. "That one particular group of Rogues who suffered the loss will be another matter."

I felt a storm brewing behind my eyes at the exception, but Martino held up a hand asking for a moment to explain himself. I didn't have much choice but to hear him out.

"They, the Rogue groups, as a rule are somewhat transitory by nature… as you probably know. They will doubtless not like the edict, and will more than likely leave my service rather than submit if I try to force it upon them. I can only withdraw my official support; reasonably claiming it is for the good of the coven association and business matters. They will still continue on their own to seek revenge on the girl for their fallen coven-mate in that case, and that is something I cannot reasonably forbid them to do. Not if I wish to remain in control of my coven and it's current associates. If I am not in control of my people, than I can obviously not give you what you want with the recall on the death warrant, can I?

"You are aware that we as a society have a certain passion for vengeance when a close fellow clan member is killed by another after all. It is the nature of the beast so to speak… and difficult to tame."

Dammit… I was hoping Martino would have a better hold on his hirelings. Or might be inclined to remove them as a problem himself to get his signet back. It didn't look as he was willing to go that far, and I had to wonder exactly what were their plans for Seattle that he would risk not getting the medallion back to keep them on track?

"And they are very upset with the fact that they could not seem to locate their friend's head," he was continuing to explain. "They were very distressed about finally having to burn his body. What did you do with it by the way?"

I only smiled to let him know I had enjoyed that part. Let him continue to wonder what I did with the head, there were far more gruesome stories about me floating around the vampire culture back in the day than just a few missing heads.

Image, as they say, is everything!

"How many Rogues in that group?" I asked instead, being to work on plan 'B'.

Benito thought a moment, and then said, "Six I believe when they first originally came to work for me, at least five now that you arrange an accident for one of their comrades. I have allowed them a certain amount of free rein in regards to supplementing their numbers with the additions of newborns or other inductees to complete the work I hired them for. Let's suffice it to say, that expansion of territory – licensed or not – is encourage, and that takes manpower to hold it. They may or may not have recruited new members by now. It is hard to keep track of such matters, and I certainly don't have the time for it."

Well, that was better odds then what we originally faced I had to consider. With Martino pulling his loyal people away, that left us with only five at minimum to worry about instead of hundreds or a thousand. Our prospect of survival just went from totally impossible to just nearly impossible.

That was the best odds I was going to get in this deal, so I had to take it, and hope Martino wouldn't find a loophole to shaft me with.

"You agree that if they push the issue after you issue the rescinding order, they are mine to do with as I please. You and your other people will stay out of it? You won't interfere and there will be no repercussions?" I asked for confirmation.

"Rest assured, neither my coven or I will take sides or intervene, nor seek retributions… as long as you both follow the law and keep your dispute out of human or public view," the older vamp promised.

By public view, he meant the view of other covens naturally. I almost asked why he thought I'd give a flying leap about vampire law, but I guess he assumed I'd want to keep my low profile intact… or he might have suspected my half-breed condition and actually thought that vamp rules meant something to me.

The old bastard's face wouldn't give me a clue as to which it was, so I just let it be for now.

"Done," I said. "I want all those damn wanted posters of yours taken down too – within the next twenty-four hours," I added. "I don't want any freelancers catching her scent and thinking she's still fair game for the reward you had on her head."

"Of course, I will instruct that they be removed from my territory and publicly rescinded the order as well… but again, I can not be held responsible if that lone coven places their own up."

I smiled wickedly.

"Then you might want to let them know, you personally will be very displeased, for business reasons – of course, if they hang any posters up on your turf. That should cut down a large area of possible trouble. We wouldn't want our arrangement to end drastically over a simple misunderstanding now… would we?"

The coven leader gave me a sour look in turn, it was clear he understood my threat.

"No, that would not be good for business," he replied tightly.

"Glad you agree," I said, and the lifted my sword blade to unpin Martino's pendant. "Take your piece of tin," I gave permission.

Martino then wasted no time in reaching forward and claiming his new prize. I was pretty sure by the new look on his creased face as he held it that he was more than happy with the trade, despite my insistent conditions. Maybe I should have also asked for something ridiculous, like an ice cream truck, just to be difficult.

"I guess we're done here," I said as I turned and jumped down from the desk.

I began to walk toward the door, keeping my sword in hand just in case he decided to pull something underhanded after all.

"Just a moment," Martino said suddenly. I turned, expecting a trick and getting ready to kill the vamp before he could spring it.

"We now have a pact, and are silent partners in this agreement, yes? A agreement which could get us both killed if it ever leaves this office… is that not so?"

"I suppose it is," I said, unwilling to think about the deal with my own devil that I just made.

"In that regard, I have a question I require some sort of answer to, whether you wish to answer it or not. It goes toward the creditability of your word concerning our arrangement."

"Then ask it, and stop wasting my time."

"Why?" he asked suddenly, he tilted his head in slight curiosity.

"Come again?" I inquired with a little bit of puzzlement.

"Why go through all this trouble and potential risk? To reveal yourself to your old enemies after all this time… for just some insignificant girl… who is nothing but a grazer I hear? She's not even a true immortal," he wanted to know.

I thought a moment. In the beginning, I had asked myself that question over and over again… and still didn't really have a real good answer that made a lot of sense for why I originally became involved. Now, I had stopped asking myself the question a while ago, as I knew the answer. It was because Angel wasn't _insignificant_ to me. I now had feelings for her, strong feelings… but I'd be damned if I was going to tell this bloodsucker about that!

"I don't really know why at first," I told him. "It seemed the right thing to do at the time. The human thing to do."

Martino looked at me for a moment, tapping his forefinger against his thin lips as he thought.

"We both know now… you are anything but a simple human, my new friend," he said a moment later. "And humane is the very last quality that I would think anyone would associate with you. Your atrocities against my people are boundless."

"Then maybe I just got tired of being too much like one of you," I answered curtly.

He tisked and smirked, as if I'd done and said something very foolish… which I have to admit, I have. The only way you survive going against a vampire is to be as nasty as they are.

"With this," he said, holding up the medal and chain, "My coven will regain its former position in the Volturi counsel. You could have retained it and kept us powerless for the rest of eternity. You could have asked for anything you wanted, anything within our power to grant at all… and mostly likely gotten it… eventually. Why sell it so cheaply? For the sake of a lone female vampire you don't even really know, and who at one time you probably would have killed if given the opportunity. This makes no sense… and I have to admit, I'm not comfortable when things make no sense to me… especially when it involves business, and my life."

"Welcome to my world," I replied flippantly. "You got the only answer I have to give. Now kindly stop trying to psychoanalyze me because it'll only just piss me off."

He frowned at me with a strong hint of dissatisfaction, he was probably hoping for a more profound answer to his question.

Boy, was he barking up the wrong tree.

"Look! I don't give a damn any longer what you do with that. Take it back to Volterra and run for class treasurer for all I care," I finally said, using the sword in my hand to point at the disk in his hand. "I've left that part of my life behind me, and that glorified hunk of tin means nothing to me anymore."

The coven leader still looked less than satisfied.

"That girl may be a insignificant _grazer_ to you," I continued, "But she was an innocent in all this. She wasn't bothering anyone that night. She wasn't hunting in anyone's territory, or trying to claim it. She was just out looking for a good time with her family when your hired thugs attacked her and her group. She asked for my help when she was dying, and for whatever goddamned stupid reason… I chose to break my cover and give it to her instead of just walking away. That's the best explanation I can give you, even though I damn sure don't owe you one.

"You leave us alone, and we'll leave you alone. You'll never hear or see either one of us again. The problem between the remainder of this Rogue coven and me is a private matter; you and your people stay out if it… and ignore it as you agreed to, because I plan on killing every single one of them if it comes down to it. I just bought that right with the return of your coven medallion."

"Of course. That is certainly agreeable, as I have said. We have an understanding."

I nodded, and started to walk for the door again. As I reached it, I had another thought. I stop at its shattered frame and turned to the old vamp one last time.

"Oh… and Benito?" I said.

He paused from examining his new possession to glance back at me.

"Yes?" he asked with a small hit of curiosity.

I pointed the tip of my sword at his chest now, the meaning of that little gesture would have been clear to anyone.  
"Don't screw with me," I added. "Change is a powerful thing… and this girl has changed me, lucky for you. I'm not who I was any longer, but have no doubt, I can easily become that person again. I've actually grown to like being bored… most of the time. You don't ever want me taking up my old habits again for any reason. Because if I ever have to, I'll start right here in your house."

He smiled an oily smile at me that was less than sincere.

"Of course," he said again.

I frowned slightly, but nodded. It was the best confirmation of understanding I was going to get from the old bloodsucker. I left before I could change my mind and decide to just take my chances… and went back in to kill him anyway like White Crow wanted.

Having to deal with Benito Martino made me feel dirty enough for one day.


	54. Chapter 53

Chapter Fifty-Three:

Benito Martino watched the man the vampire world had known as Lucifer walk through the ruined office door and disappear silently into the hallway. He briefly thought about alerting his soldiers to the killer's presence, but discarded the thought almost as soon as it occurred to him.

In retrospect, he didn't want anyone to know the killer had been there. That would not have fitted in with the larger plans that were developing in his mind at the moment.

Besides, Lucifer had gotten into his lair without most of his men noticing, he'd probably have the same covert way of escaping as well. For about forty years, everyone from the Volturi on down had tried to capture, trap, and kill the assassin with no success. He seemed to come and go as he pleased, killing entire covens at will and then disappearing without a trace as if he were a phantom.

He now knew without a doubt the man wasn't a specter of any kind.

Back then, they all had thought him just a human with a grudge and a whole lot of incredible luck, but tonight he'd learned that the man was something else. What that something was, Benito at the moment hadn't a clue. He wasn't a vampire that was for certain, not with that heartbeat – as strange as it was. Nor was he a Shifter or a Child of the Moon. His scent was odd and not really human or shifter either.

He'd have to make some discreet inquires about possible answers if he was going to learn Lucifer's secret, he thought to himself as he idly fingered the pendant, running the old gold chain through his hands.

Once he had learned what he wanted to know it might give him the upper hand, then perhaps Lucifer could be persuaded to form a different sort of alliance with Martino's coven, one that would be very profitable to Martino personally.

He wouldn't need to depend on the groups of unreliable Rogues he'd been recruiting any longer, if he had the infamous Lucifer as his private assassin. Perhaps he could think of something the killer would find mutually beneficial to them both in return for his assistance. Money, power, or just a safer haven… every living being had his or her price.

With Lucifer's help, Benito foresaw himself as _Lord of Seattle_ in the very near future. Well, Lord of Seattle in the sense that he would be holding the territory for his true masters. He also might be able to eventually use his Illuminati backing and Lucifer's deadly skills to finally take his revenge on Aro and his cluster of hanger-ons. He definitely wanted to make them pay for the disgrace he suffered at their hands all those years in Italy.

And if Lucifer declined to be willingly cooperative in his quest for a new order, there was always that grazer girl he has an even stranger interest in, to use as leverage if need be.

He made a mental note to discreetly attempt to find out all he could about her as well.

Martino smiled to himself, in coming here and making this deal, the infamous killer of vampires had handed over his very weakness right into Benito's hands. If nothing else, that mud-eyed girl would be the key to controlling Lucifer.

He decided to put only a few of his very best and most trusted people on quietly learning the girl's identity if they were able, just in case that back up plan for leverage became necessary.

Perhaps, he thought next, it might also be in his own best interest for Martino to tip the odds against that particular pack of Rogues in Lucifer's favor. It would have to be done discreetly and with a delicate hand of course. It wouldn't do for it to become known that he had betrayed his own employees, which would make it much harder to recruit help in the future if his plans for the killer didn't bare the fruit he hoped they would right away.

He turned the idea over in his mind for several moments, and then decided that it would be wise for him to wait and see how Lucifer handled the situation. After all… if the legendry Lucifer couldn't exterminate a pack of lowlife Rogue vampires, then he wasn't the killer he use to be, was he?

Yes, he would wait and see… and if Lucifer proved worthy and still capable in his estimate, Martino might assist him a little bit in removing the remains of the Rogue coven if required. He didn't want a possible valuable asset needlessly lost on a simple test either if it still held some promise.

It was always best to hedge each and every bet as much as possible in this business.

Especially when he was acting secretly in the interest of his new masters, and by thus, working to undermine the hold the Volturi have had on this new country, and the vampire world in general, for centuries.

A painful gasping murmur from the floor by the door earned Martino's attention. The guard with the broken neck still lay there looking up at him. He was trying to make words, but was having trouble getting anything out but a bunch of annoying noises that made no sense.

"_Oh yes. Must do something about that,"_ Benito thought to himself.

The big guard would continue to have trouble with speaking until his neck bones mended themselves and he regained control of his lungs once more.

Fortunately, without feeding, that was hours if not at least a day away for the vampire!

Perhaps Lucifer had done him a service without realizing it by choosing to incapacitate the guard in such a manner?

Martino slid the medallion into his desk drawer for safekeeping and locked it, he wasn't ready to reveal to anyone the signet had been returned to his custody just yet. As always, you could never have too many backup plans whenever possible, if the Illuminati's plans failed, then the medallion assured his place back on the Volturi council.

He didn't like the last option very much, as it would still leave him as an underling of Aro and the others. And it was especially undesirable given the disrespect he and his coven had suffered at Volturi hands for the last eighty years, but it was better than nothing if the Illuminati's quest for power proved unsuccessful.

He needed to carefully construct and place his story to cover its reappearance in that regard. His coven had waited over eighty years for its return to some semblance of power; it could stand to wait a little while longer.

He hit the button on the intercom atop his desk as soon as the pendant was safely tucked away from casual view.

"Staschio… come up here," he demanded as soon as his second in command answered his call.

The sentry looked up at him with grateful eyes, thinking his master was calling for someone to aid him.

Benito smiled back at the guard in a kindly reassuring manner.

Staschio appeared within ten seconds of the summons. The tall Spanish vampire paused at the destroyed door with a question plainly in his red eyes as he took in the considerable damage.

Martino waved the question off, and instead pointed at the guard on the floor.

"Take him to the basement and dismember the fool. Then burn all the pieces in the furnace," Benito commanded. "I want nothing left of him."

The unlucky guard's eyes widened in shock at the order, and he began trying to yell and plead. The sounds that came out were not any more understandable as they had been just a few minutes ago.

Staschio shrugged in indifference at the order, and picked up the massive sentry as if he weighted about as much as a feather-filled pillow. He was out of the office in a flash, taking the doomed vampire guard with him.

Martino smiled.

Staschio was the perfect second in command, the coven head reflected. Unlike Montimori, Martino had chosen his second with an eye toward lack of ambition… as any smart coven leader would do in his opinion.

Publicly, Benito had been outraged when Lucifer had killed his sire; privately… he really hadn't been all that heartbroken over the matter. Seeing it suddenly left him in a new position of power. Perhaps it had been because he was so much older when he had been brought across that he could view the situation in a more logical manner, and see it for the opportunity it had been. Younger, more hot-blooded vampires, always screamed for vengeance first, and didn't see the bigger picture presented to them by an abrupt vacuum within the coven.

However, he hadn't foreseen his new status being cut relatively short by the Volturi summoning him back to Italy as a result of Montimori's sudden death.

Still, Staschio never questioned anything Martino asked of him. He probably just assumed that the guard his leader asked him to destroy had angered Benito in some way, and that's how the door got damaged as well. When in truth, Benito simply didn't want to have any witnesses to the meeting between Lucifer and himself around to talk about it later.

Three could keep a secret much better if one of them were dead. The secret was even more secure if two of the three were dead… but that would leave him without the asset of his own private assassin… so exceptions to that logical rule needed to be made.

He made a mental note to have Staschio and his people perform a random inspection of the security measures of his home, to see if they might discover how Lucifer had gained entry… and to have someone repair his office door and refurnish his prized desk.

However, at the moment, he had other more important things to plan for. He smiled and breathed deeply, as if he could smell power again coming his way – and great power at that.

His future was looking brighter by the moment.


	55. Chapter 54

Chapter Fifty-Four: 

The day after my imprudent visit to Martino's lair, and making a distasteful – but very necessary – deal with my own personal devil, I thought it best that Angel and I stick close to home and out of public view for a while, at least a day or so on my part, possibly longer for her. The only thing we could really do now anyway was wait… and see if the coven leader would actually hold up his end of the bargain we struck.

The fact is, I personally was never a good one for leaving a crisis in someone else's hands and waiting, having always preferred direct action to solve a vampire problem. So to kill time and work off some nervous energy I fell back into the familiar routine of physically working out.

I had just done two hundred push-ups on my knuckles, mostly to help desensitize them to blows – especially against vampire flesh, and had switched to doing them on my fingertips when Angel came into the living room. She couldn't help but notice I had moved some of the furniture out of my way to make room for my regime.

"What are you doing?" she inquired with some bewilderment after a moment of watching.

"Push-ups," I responded, obviously without need.

The vampire girl rolled her eyes and tisked at me. "I can see that… what I meant is _why_ are you doing them? Its not like it's going to make you stronger, or build any muscle… you're half vampire."

"I know that," I said. "But the activity helps me think."

And the mindless training usually did. In the past, I'd had some of my best ideas for fighting vampires while performing meaningless exercises… sort of like an impromptu meditation routine. It was a habit I had picked up while in Japan, when I had to cram educational lessons in along with the physical parts of learning my newest martial art.

I must have been somewhat out of practice because I wasn't coming up with much of use at the moment… but I at least felt like I was doing something slightly constructive instead of just sitting on my butt.

"Oh?" Angel said, and I can tell by her manner she thought this one of the times I was being a little impractical. "Let me help you then," she suddenly added. Her tone turned deeply mischievous.

She bounced over and straddled my shoulder and upper back, as she would have a horse. I felt all her weight settle on me as she picked her feet up and curled her legs to my sides.

"How's that? Better?" she wanted to know impishly.

"Just peachy," I told her as I briefly paused… wondering if the vampire girl was suffering from cabin fever only after a few hours of being told we wouldn't be leaving the house for a day, or possibly two. But I think I surprised her a bit when I continued on and kept going with my fingertip push-ups, as if her added weight hadn't mattered.

I neglected to mention to her that during my martial arts training, because of my unique condition, I had to perform pushups on my fingertips for several hours while over a bed of broken glass… and with a few hundred pounds of sand bags sitting on my back at the end of my time at the school.

Angel quickly grew tired of the game when she didn't get the obvious reaction of annoyance she wanted, but that didn't stop her from turning over on her back and using me like a moving lounge chair while she read one of her fashion magazines. She never complained about the continuing steady raise and fall motion, or lost her place on my back as I moved, even though she wasn't holding on to anything. I supposed that it wasn't a great big deal to her in the end as she could probably do pushups all day long with me riding on her and never even notice I was there. So I guessed now she was just showing off her perfect sense of balance by remaining where she was and casually reading.

I was saved from further vampire chick torture about a half hour later by a knock at the front door. Angel and I both stole curious glances at each other, because as keyed up as we both were, neither one of us heard anyone approaching the house.

I should have expected Gary White Crow would eventually show up early that morning on our front porch again, and he actually displayed some small surprise at seeing me still alive when I answered the door. I found his lack of faith in my hard earned skills just slightly annoying, but in retrospect… I guess I really couldn't blame him for his reservations. What I had done the day before was a bit on the suicidal side for anyone… living or half-undead.

Once over his slight shock, the old Indian was anxious to hear my report on how my task went, but he wasn't too happy to find out I actually reached an agreement with Benito instead of falling back on 'Plan B', and outright killing the coven master while I had the opportunity.

However the Were was more than thrilled with the information I was able to provide him on the layout of Martino's headquarters and security systems. The sudden gleam in his eyes warned me I might have screwed up by telling Gary what I'd learned, and set me worrying. So I made him promise that he and his furry friends wouldn't do anything with the information I'd just given him until Angel and I were out of this mess.

Gary took the opportunity to again push for Angel and I to join his group, as that would provide enough protection for both of us in his opinion. But Angel and I stuck to our guns about that arrangement and the Were reluctantly agreed to hold off on Martino, and that gave me a sense of relief.

Martino and I might have had a pact at the moment… but at no time did I promise him that I wouldn't turn what I knew over to werewolves for their future use. I just promised I wouldn't talk to other vampires about it.

Angel had been pestering me to continue her ninjutsu training, as I had promised, so I decided it would be a fine opportunity for a lesson… seeing we were spending the day 'hiding out' – like common criminals.

White Crow decided he would stick around and hang out for a while… seeing he'd "never met a honest to goodness ninja before."

I had a sneaking suspicion that the old man might have been poking fun at me, but I could read nothing positive about that on his wrinkled features. I had a vague idea the Indian could keep a straight face during the funniest comedy movie if he wished to, and I made a mental note never to play poker with him for large money.

I had several times attempted to explain to the aged Indian what I did was a little beyond what the common person would think was a ninja, and it was certainly light-years beyond the movie myth of popular cinema, but the old Were didn't seem to grasp the concept no matter how simply I put it.

Or… it was he was choosing to misunderstand on purpose, simply to annoy me.

So with our unplanned audience of one in tow… the vampire girl and I headed out to our somewhat secluded back yard, where I also had my archery range, to continue her martial arts education.

Angel's Bunjinkan training in fact continued progressing even faster than I had first estimated. She learned the basics like a duck taking to water, having that natural unearthly balance and grace of a full-blood vampire. At times it almost seemed that she was taking directions right from my thoughts the way she effortlessly seem to understand the principles behind the empty-hand techniques I showed her.

With her impressive progress, I had also recently started to introduce weapons to her.

We were out on the wide back lawn, dressed to train in comfortable loose-fitting clothing. Angel now looked at me in doubt, than back at the length of wood in her hand with some obvious dissatisfaction.

"Why are we bothering with sticks?" she grumbled, with more than a bit of disappointment in her tone. "Its not even sharp at one so you can use it like a stake."

I rolled my eyes, as she made a stabbing motion with the short staff. Angel had become a fiend for B-grade horror flicks, and watched way too many of them for anyone's good.

"Its called a "Hanbo", I corrected, while brandishing my own three-and-a-half foot dowel of hardwood. "With this you can learn all the basics of other weapons."

"Really?" Angel openly jeered. "With this little-bitty toothpick?"

"Yes," I answered, my tone growing sour with her constant sarcastic doubt.

"Whoa there, Boss! Looks like you got your hands full proving that one to the little lady," White Crow put in from where he lounged on the steps of the rear porch, scarfing down a forgotten bag of potato chips he found somewhere in our kitchen.

I turned to gaze at him irately.

"You're not helping… as usual," I scolded.

The old Indian threw his crumb-coated hands up in surrender.

"Okay, okay, I'll zip it," he said contritely. "Got anything to drink?" he added, brushing his hands off.

"Use the garden hose," I responded bitterly.

The Were frowned. "That's not being very host-like!"

"Stop being mean," Angel told me in turn, then turned to our 'guest', "Gary, check the refrigerator. There should be something in there," she told the old man.

White Crow gave the pretty little vampire a huge charming smile.

"Thank ye kindly, madam," he said with over exaggerated politeness. He twisted his lips up as his gaze swept passed me. "Paleface!" he muttered as he sprang up the steps into the house.

I sighed over the interruption, and then gave my attention back to Angel and the current lesson I was attempting to impart to her.

"Okay… forget about the dog," I said.

"Wolf!" we heard in a near growl coming from deep inside the house. "I'm a goddamned Wolf, you cretin!"

"Whatever," I replied.

Then with some luck, I was able to run Angel through the basics of how to hold and use the Hanbo without further distractions from our guest.

I was showing Angel how to block and trap an attacking limb when White Crow reappeared and plopped himself back down in his former place on the stairs. I was trying not to notice that he had found a half-gallon pitcher full of iced tea that Angel must have made for me at some point, and was currently using said pitcher as a large drinking glass.

For a thin old guy, that werewolf sure could eat!

Angel had just thrown a punch at me, which I deflected with the short end of the Hanbo. I then daftly weaved the longer end through her elbow joint until the tip was caught up under her armpit.

"At this point in the technique, you next simply crank down on the end of the staff you are holding," I was telling her, explaining as we slowly went through the lesson.

Angel frowned in disbelief.

"But I could just tense up my arm and break this twig in…" she started to say, until I cranked down hard on the Hanbo.

Angel suddenly squeaked in alarm after her elbow joint hyper-extended beyond the point even she could control it. Her arm locked up and I dumped her on the ground.

"Hey!" she shouted huffily, her face partly buried in the grass. "That wasn't funny!"

"It wasn't meant to be," I said as I unwrapped her arm from my staff. "It was meant to show you that you shouldn't be so arrogant… and to give you some confidence in using this 'twig' as a weapon if you have to. It was also to remind you that while you are faster, stronger, and less vulnerable than a human, your body is still designed like one, and still has some of the same mechanical flaws. You can imagine I made it my business finding and knowing each and every one of those faults by heart. Understanding how to exploit those flaws is the secret to winning… even against a vampire."

I helped her up from the ground and got an acerbic look for my trouble.

White Crow squinted his eyes at us. He knew impending trouble when he seen it.

"Whew, Chief… I think she's gonna make you pay for that one sooner or later," he criticized.

"Don't you have some fire-hydrants to water somewhere, instead of heckling my class?" I wanted to know.

"Nope, not today," the Indian quipped with a mirthful grin, not offend by my comment in the least. It was obvious he though something entertaining was soon coming over the horizon.

Despite the Were's running commentary, and bad blow-by-blow impressions of Howard Cosell, we were able to get far enough along in the lesson to work on a little bit of free sparring with the Hanbos. Angel seemed to enjoy the part where I showed her that she could switch from traditional Hanbo techniques into just about any sword method in the blink of an eye.

She showed just how well she'd learned, when she made a fake sweep at my feet with her stick to get me to leap over it. As soon as I started to land, Angel executed a nearly perfect Hidari-Kesa-Giri downward diagonal cut that took me painfully across both shins.

"Ow!" Gary openly cringed at the sound of the solid wood cracking against bone.

I stumbled upon landing, tucked into a roll and came back to my feet with my lower legs smarting like hell.

Angel grinned slyly at me, knowing she nailed me good. Pay back was a bitch, and so could be Angel.

"Okay grasshopper," I said, as I limped painfully into a new ready stance. "You want to play that way? Let's go," I beckoned.

The mocking smirk the little vampire gave me said that she thought I was pushing my luck after she had just scored so well. But she chambered her Hanbo as if it were a spear, and charged in anyway to finish me off.

Instead of slipping her rush, I used the Earth posture of ninjutsu fighting and held my ground. At the last possible second I dropped low to the ground, and like I was using a pool cue, I drove the tip of my half-staff into the pressure point just above the kneecap on her leading leg.

Pressure points on vampires don't work, unless they are accompanied by a secondary reaction due to one of those aforementioned design imperfections in the human body that not even vampirism can correct… like this one. The pressure of the tip of the Hanbo against Angel's knee jammed its hinging action and caused it to lock up. Her unstoppable forward momentum then made Angel stumble. As soon as she did that, I leaned to the outside and swung the long end of the Hanbo like I was reaping with a sickle, to hook in behind that same knee. Once there, I rotated it like I was working a boat oar and took Angel off both her feet.

The girl hit the ground hard flat on her back. I immediately moved in and trapped a few of her fingers between my hand and the shaft of my Hanbo. I then yanked that arm straight and jammed one heel into her armpit. The other end of the Hanbo ended up jabbed in under the fleshy part of her jaw, forcing her to turn her head slightly away from me. This also had the added benefit of taking Angel's sight away from me, thus she could no longer see what I was up to – which left her in even more of a dire strait strategically. I lastly rotated my hand holding her pinched fingers slightly, which in turn locked out Angel's arm and elbow, and put more pressure on her jaw.

"Give up?" I asked.

The girl couldn't speak with the end of my half-staff trying to find a path into her mouth by boring its way in under her chin, so she slapped her free hand against the ground in the traditional marital artist tap-out manner.

I immediate released the hold I had on her, and rolled over to end up crouch on my feet next to her, placing the end of my Hanbo on the ground and using it to lean on casually while I regarded her.

I hadn't wanted this to turn into a pissing match, and I'd been a touch harder on her than I planned, but she wanted to learn and as her Sensei, I had to be firm when it was required. This wasn't a game after all, and I was trying to teach her a skill that just might save her life.

"Your biggest mistake that time was in thinking that I was as injured as I let on to be. Remember that," I lectured her as she propped herself on her elbows to gaze at me with a blank face. "The strong fighter will always dominate over the weak fighter, but the smart fighter will win over them both," I quoted from one of my teachers from long ago. "Bunjinkan is the art of winning… anything including deception and misdirection is a weapon to be used."

I almost expected her to be sulky over the trick I'd played on her; instead she brushed her clothing off a bit then turned to me with an unexpected big smile.

"You're going to have to show me again how you did that one," she asked brightly.

After another hour of weapon's training, I took Angel further into the art of Chikairi-no-jutsu. I explained and showed her how to walk and move soundlessly, how to blend in with the smallest of shadows, and how to hide in the most unlikely of places.

White Crow himself seemed intrigued by what we were practicing, and I caught him several times out of the corner of my eye following us about and mimicking what we were doing. Once when I looked at him questionably, he grinned sheepishly and said it was a lot easier hiding and moving unnoticed as a wolf.

Angel seemed delighted with her newly discovered skills, and looking at the old man inspiration struck me. I asked if he was up to a game of "hide and seek" with Angel, and I indicated the heavy brush that bordered my property. The girl suddenly got a look of wicked amusement on her face, obviously thinking that she could easily outsmart the Were – on his own turf, more or less – and beat him in the game.

White Crow seemed up to the challenge, and Angel was so confident she didn't even blink when I suggested that White Crow hunt her as a wolf.

There were several acres of heavy undeveloped woodland behind the homes on our street and that would be our playing field. Angel was given a ten minute head start into the woods before the Were would follow and attempt to find and catch her.

I had no fear that anything bad could be waiting inside the forest, as White Crow would have sensed them better than Angel or I would have, even in his human form. And a vamp would have to be pretty stupid to hang around with a werewolf in the immediate area.

Gary ducked behind the garage for a moment to do what he had to do, and then a huge wolf bounded out just a few moments later. The wolf came and sat by my side on the porch as we waited for the ten minutes to expire. White Crow sat patiently, motionless like a statue, except for his ears that would twitch every now and then as he searched the woods for any audible sign of Angel.

Eventually I glanced at my watch and saw that Angel's grace time was up.

"Time," I said to the wolf, who huffed once and immediately bolted into the brush at the back of the yard.

I got up and headed into the kitchen and made more iced tea. When I returned the back porch to wait the results of the game with some interest. The area was still silent for the most part. I supposed it might have been a dirty trick to pit Angel against Gary this way, as I doubted very much any vampire could hide from a werewolf for very long. I was sure that Angel had taken to the treetops at several points in the exercise to break her scent trail, but having seen him in action, I knew White Crow would eventually find her no matter what.

However, there was no better way to build and hone your skills than by training against or with someone better than you were. It was the best and quickest way to learn… I 'd discovered that simple truth long ago in my own training.

I had been back on the porch for about fifteen minutes, and was beginning to be surprised the game had even lasted this long, when I heard a bark in the distance, followed immediately by a squeal of enjoyment that could only have come from Angel.

The barking increased, along with the shouted taunts. I could follow the commotion as it traveled around the woods from place to place, far quicker than any human could have moved, and knew the training game of "hide and seek" had turned into fun competition of "catch me if you can".

There was little doubt that the martial arts lesson was over for the day, as apparently the pair was soon taking turns with the roles of hunter and prey, and chasing each other through the trees.

Angel's laughter sounded happy as it drifted back to me, even White Crow's booming barks seemed filled with delight. I leaned back against the next step of the short staircase, and was surprised to find a small grin on my face, deciding this was the perfect way to end the day's workout.


End file.
